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.
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.
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.
Created by the Daniel Boone Regional Library (DBRL) for the Read Harder event, the library compiled a list of recommended books by authors with disabilities. Representation matters, and highlighting books by persons with lived experiences can help provide that representation for persons with disabilities in the library.
The Library Accessibility Features web page by Lisa Kovak discusses the changed libraries can and should make to conform with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). The features discussed on this page include materials, programming, equipment and services, and how to contact the library.
The American Library Association encourages members and library staff to create materials that are accessible for both library patrons and co-workers. The accessibility resources they provide cover accessible documents (in Word and PDFs), adding alternative text in different technology platforms, and testing the accessibility of the resources.
Google provides help documentation to guide you through the steps needed to create documents using assistive technologies and how to make accessible documents.
If you are interested in learning more about screen magnification technologies, this resource is a terrific starting point. The AbilityNet factsheet describes what screen magnification software is and does.
A Novel Mind is an excellent resource for children’s literature. The books recommended on this site cover topics such as Mental Health, Autism, Self-Esteem, Bullying and much more.
There are many new technologies used to convey spatial information, including 3D printing, tactile graphics, and haptics. The Diagram Center: A Benetech Initiative provides information about these different technologies.
The Adaptive Umbrella blog shares information and resources about accessible library programming and services. The blog provides different programming guidelines and ideas for sensory storytimes.
The American Foundation of the Blind (AFB) provides a list of assistive technologies (also known as access technologies) that persons with print disabilities use to consume content. The products page includes a summary of the different technologies as well as the different types and options for each one.
Developed at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Virtual Story Time Services Guide helps libraries conduct important outreach services that would have otherwise been unavailable. The guidelines for conducting virtual storytime cover the technologies necessary, promotion, copyright, best practices, inclusive policies, ideas, and additional resources.