Accessibility to Library Databases and Other Online Library Resources for People with Disabilities

by Adina Mulliken, Reference Librarian, Social Work, CFS, MFT, Aging, Library Disability Services, Bird Library, Syracuse University

Are your library’s databases accessible to people with disabilities? Do they comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act or the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines? How about your other licensed resources, such as ejournals, ebooks, and metasearch engines? Catalogs, chat software, wikis and other web 2.0 applications? There is a page on ASCLA’s new wiki to help librarians find and share the answers to these questions. From this page http://ascla.ala.org/toolkit/index.php?title=Main_Page, go to the link at the bottom of the page for Accessibility to Library Databases and Other Online Library Resources for People with Disabilities. Googling Accessibility to Library Databases and Other Online Library Resources for People with Disabilities works too. There is also a section of the page for librarians to share practical experiences and advice about evaluating resources for accessibility. This is geared toward librarians who are not experts about accessibility. I hope you will consider contributing to the wiki. More information about accessibility of many types of resources is needed. If it is easier for you to email information you’d like to contribute, rather than to post directly to the wiki, you are welcome to email Adina Mulliken at amullike@syr.edu.

1 Eileen Boswell said at 7:13 am on April 15th, 2009:
Thank you for posting this important information. Librarians need to lead change and educating ourselves about accessible technology is one way to do that. Great work!
2 Mary J. Barnett said at 11:09 am on May 16th, 2009:
It’s taken a long time! Thank you for finally addressing an issue that’s been neglected by libraries for too long. As traditional reference sources have migrated to online versions, little attention has been paid to their accessibility for people with print disabilities. People with print disabilities have noted the lack of advocacy on this topic and wondered if librarians truly wanted to provide “access for all.”

Vendors do listen to librarians, and at last we can be advocates to vendors for patrons with print disabilities. Most of the adjustments that need to be made to online sources are not onerous; they require awareness in user interface design and an initial and ongoing committment to the process.

Thank you for making me proud to be a member of ASCLA!