The first webinar in the four-part Creating Accessible Presentations series, learn more about creating inclusive and accessible presentation slides. The slides outline information like colour contrast, font formatting, and accessible hyperlinks.
The procurement process is complex, and accessibility should be one of the significant components of this process. The Public Library Accessibility Resource Center (PLARC) has developed the procurement guidelines for purchasing and licensing online digital resources and content.
Asking vendors about the accessibility of their products ensures that you provide the most inclusive content and reading systems available for your patrons. This is important because not all content, online services, and reading systems have accessibility built into them by design.
Asking vendors about the accessibility of their e-resource platforms (websites, apps, and reading platforms) ensures that you provide the most inclusive reading experience for library patrons. This is important because not all online services and reading systems have accessibility built into them by design.
Use this checklist when procuring e-resource platforms (websites, apps, or reading platforms) to help you determine if the platforms are accessible. Investing in accessible e-resources at the procurement stage will ensure that they are easier to maintain and upgrade and are more likely to be compatible with assistive technologies.
Evaluating the vendors and companies that libraries purchase from will provide a better idea of how accessible their products will be. If the companies have accessibility policies, employ persons with lived experiences, and have accessibility documentation, it is much likelier that the products they supply libraries are accessible.
Emojipedia provides emoji descriptions, information about the emoji, like how it is commonly used, and how the different emojis are portrayed on different platforms and devices (e.g., Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, etc.). The emoji descriptions are read aloud by screen readers, so library staff should use Emojipedia when adding emojis to their social media posts.
Displaying accessibility metadata is becoming increasingly important as more digital content is born accessible. The User Experience Guide for Displaying Accessibility Metadata 1.0 discusses the importance of accessibility metadata for persons with print disabilities and how to display this information for readers.
Group under the W3C Community Group, outlines and instructs how to display the accessibility metadata of EPUBs. Library staff should use this resource when displaying their metadata for patrons.
The Audiobook Recommendation for Publishers provides guidelines for creating accessible audiobooks. Audiobooks are considered to be accessible, but they are not inherently so. Library staff can use sections of this resource to evaluate the accessibility of audiobooks during procurement.
The Accessibility Features Checklist, created by Accessible Publishing, compiled the features needed to make accessible ebooks. The resource separates the accessibility features into four types of ebooks – general, non-fiction, children’s ebooks, and poetry.
The Accessible Canada Act is “An act to ensure a barrier-free Canada” (Consolidated Federal Laws of Canada, Accessible Canada Act 2019). The act’s purpose is to create an accessible Canada by 2040 by identifying, removing, and preventing accessibility barriers.
The Accessible British Columbia Act, assented on June 17, 2021, outlines accessibility requirements that organizations need to fulfill. This includes creating an accessibility committee, plan, and asking the public for feedback.
We suggest you use this checklist as a guide for library staff when they are starting their accessibility journey or when you provide staff training. The information is summarized from the Accessibility 101 webinar, slides, and the “Quick Reference: Accessibility 101” document.
Documents can be both accessible and inaccessible. It all depends on how it is formatted. This checklist will help you make an accessible and readable document for everyone. The information in this resource is summarized from previous webinars.
The Accessible Book Consortium (ABC), led by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), is dedicated to increasing the availability of accessible book formats (braille, eBooks, audiobooks, etc.) worldwide for people with print disabilities.
Accessibility Insights provides an open-source tool that uncovers accessibility issues in websites and apps. This resource is particularly useful for web developers and those in charge of your library website. Accessibility Insights is available for Android devices, as a browser extension, and for Windows.
Accessible social media posts increase the number of people your information will reach. If your social media is accessible, it reflects positively on your library because you create an inclusive environment for all patrons. Use this checklist to create accessible social media posts!
The Book Riot article, Best Dyslexia-Friendly Books for Kids by Rachel Rosenburg, lists 12 awesome books for people with dyslexia. The books, written and formatted for children with dyslexia, are organized into categories like picture books, chapter books, and graphic novels.
The schema.org accessibility metadata helps readers find content with the accessible features they would like in a publication. The schema.org accessibility metadata can be added to the HTML using Resources Descriptive Framework (RDF), a semantic web standard, or EPUB 2, EPUB 3, and audiobooks to inform users of the accessible elements the content contains.