With the expectation that staff absence and self-isolation will continue for the next few weeks, it can be challenging to sustain the momentum of accessibility projects and training. With staff stretched to capacity covering shortages and supporting their students, how can we ensure the work on accessibility and digital inclusion doesn’t get relegated to the […]
Universities and colleges have a legal obligation to provide resources in accessible formats to print disabled students. However, many of the e-book platforms they subscribe to have limited accessibility or are tied-in to scarcely accessible third-party tools like Adobe Digital Editions. So it is not unusual to need to get the raw file from the publisher […]
Sarah George is a Subject Librarian at the University of Bradford. She was made a National Teaching Fellow in 2017 – and her accessibility remit contributed significantly to that recognition. Here she gives a personal take on e-book accessibility and accessibility activism via research and evidence. I am an academic librarian at the University of Bradford, covering the subjects […]
Invitation to a New Year Resolution… As the last days of 2017 draw in, Alistair McNaught looks at plans for the 2018 e-book accessibility audit. This will be simpler than the 2016 version but – we believe – more effective. In this season of peace and goodwill to all, we’re looking for an audit that […]
It seems tautological to write a blog post on open access and accessibility. Surely if something is open access then it is open to anyone and therefore accessible to anyone? Alistair McNaught argues that the link between open access and accessibility is more nuanced than you might expect. Authors and institutions need simple guidelines to […]
The students leave. The library staff have a chance to breathe, reflect and plan ahead. August is an excellent month to take the opportunity to say ‘Well done’ to those who have made a difference in supporting disabled students. Using a simple online voting tool Alistair McNaught asked the LIS-Accessibility Jiscmail list who they wanted […]
Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) GAAD on May 18 is a day designed to remind those who shape our digital world that they have a critical role in making our future world accessible to everyone. Most designers work to accessibility standards and guidelines that consider the diversity of ways that people access webpages, software and mobile […]
Text to speech is great but not everyone gets on with it. What other ways can we deliver words to eyes more efficiently? What about people who want to read with their eyes but have visual or other difficulties that make scanning normal pages tiring or inefficient? What about those who need bigger fonts but […]
A recent question on the Assistive-technology Jisc mail list (https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=ASSISTIVE-TECHNOLOGY) sparked some interesting debate. Alistair McNaught thought the debate was worthwhile enough to summarise as a blog post. In the process he discovered some weird and wonderful things about redeeming inaccessible PDFs… How are PDFs good for accessibility? If a PDF document has been created […]
People are different. Personally, I loathe icons. I am a words person. I hate working with wordless IKEA self-assembly booklets or icon driven tablet and phone screens. Even after 3 months daily use I stare at my Mac screen trying to differentiate between email and word processing symbols because icons are just a jumble of […]