Empowering Access & Ensuring Accessibility: Connecting People to Information & Collections

The 2018 ALCTS Midwinter Symposium “Empowering Access and Ensuring Accessibility: Connecting People to Information and Collections” was held Friday, February 9. Six speakers presented at the day-long symposium to approximately 50 participants. Supplementary materials and presentation slides are available online.

The symposium started with a welcome and introduction to access and accessibility in libraries from Mary Beth Thomson, president of ALCTS. She extended thanks to OCLC for sponsorship of the event and recognized the six registration grant awardees who were funded by donations to ALCTS. Helen Reed, co-chair of the 2018 ALCTS President’s Program Committee, introduced the first speaker.

Children jump up and down in excitement at the arrival of a bookmobile.
Michelle Jeske’s keynote presentation outlined creative way to surmount barriers to access. In this image from one of her slides, children jump up and down in excitement at the arrival of a bookmobile.

Michelle Jeske, the city librarian for the Denver Public Library, was the keynote speaker; her address “Libraries Improving Access: Policies, Programs, and Promotion” was framed in the broad context of access and accessibility, with information on ways her library is working to break down barriers to access. Jeske addressed numerous barriers that prevent access and accessibility, and gave examples of ways libraries can meet people where they are to provide access. Life circumstance barriers, such as age, agency, homelessness, and disabilities, might be addressed with bookmobiles, social workers in the library, re-entry assistance post-incarceration, outreach to immigrants, and an urban library initiative. Other general barriers exist, such as library location, lack of family programming, time, cost (e.g., WiFi hotspot checkouts, fines), rules, and lack of awareness about what the modern library can do. These barriers might be addressed with public spaces for congregating, concurrent adult and child programming, access to e-books in free reading zones, digitization of materials, elimination of fines, reexamining rules around food and bag limits, creating inclusive collections so patrons see themselves in libraries and books, and placing marketing materials in cultural locations for people to discover. Jeske concluded that the fundamentals of the library profession remain but continue to be expanded in the current culture.

Heidi M. Schroeder, accessibility coordinator and science collections coordinator at the Michigan State University (MSU) Libraries, presented “Working as a Library Consortium to Improve Vendor E-Resource Accessibility.” Schroeder began with a call for all libraries to focus on accessibility of collections. She described how the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA), comprised of 14 research institutions, including MSU, is working to implement accessibility license language in e-resource contracts with various vendor platforms. Takeaways from her experiences include:

  1. Commit to learn more about accessibility and how to implement it in the library.
    1. Find out if your library has a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT).
    2. Review the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.
  2. Work with others on accessibility, using collective influence and preventing duplication of efforts.
  3. Insert accessibility license language into e-resource licenses and contracts (or at least try to).
    1. Accessibility issues identified with e-resources included PDF problems, objects not accessible to users, missing context, problems with interactive elements, etc.
  4. Learn more about accessibility barriers in e-resources.
  5. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good—take things one step at a time, and get started.

The BTAA will continue updating evaluations of library e-resources in 2018. These reports are especially useful for libraries that do not have the resources or time to test accessibility.

Next was a panel on “Accessing Library Data: Systems, Standards, and Strategies” with two presenters.

Dr. Heather Moulaison Sandy, professor at the University of Missouri iSchool, presented “Library Metadata to Promote Discovery: Considerations and Examples.” She used subject analysis exercises to demonstrate that perceptions are your own (e.g., what colors do you see?) and explained that culture can dictate perceptions of things that are otherwise subjective. These differences in perception can be tied to biases, and when organizing information in a library environment, biases emerge even though we try to be neutral. Moulaison Sandy explained how these biases and perceptions create problems when the needs of users, especially those who may not be part of the dominant culture that has defined a classification system, are not considered. It is important for websites to speak the user’s language and implement usability heuristics; for metadata, this includes appropriate fields, appropriate terminology, and appropriate groupings or classifications. Several ways to help non-mainstream users include creating specialized vocabularies, using non-hierarchical folksonomies, testing new ideas, and building new ontologies based on authoritative existing vocabularies and taxonomies. She concluded by calling on librarians to remember that bias is normal, so acknowledge it; speak the user’s language and create metadata to meet user needs; and work with colleagues who understand usability and retrieval.

Quotation by Tim Berners-Lee
Jennifer Dandle’s presentation argued that improving accessibility for some improves accessibility for all.

Jennifer Dandle, web manager at UC San Diego Library, presented “Accessibility is Good for Everyone: Enhancing Discoverability with Accessible Content.” She opened by explaining how accessibility—specifically inclusion, improved usability, and search engine optimization in the realm of web design—benefits everyone. Dandle stated that often (in an effort to provide accessible content) people want to set up templates. However, distributed content-creation processes aren’t always successful as people will change the design along the way, and what was originally accessible may lose aspects of accessibility as it is redesigned. In order to create accessible content, use plain language, create well-formed hyperlinks (e.g., use descriptive text instead of “click here” for hyperlinks), and use alternative text with images. There are user traits to consider as well when designing accessible web content; take age, language, culture, computing skills, and ability levels into consideration and use them to inform content creation. Ultimately, the questions to ask when enhancing discovery are “Who is your audience?” and “What is your goal?”

Roundtable discussions took place after lunch. Prior to the symposium, attendees received a survey to vote on topics they were interested in discussing; in Denver, attendees selected from the predetermined topics the two 20-minute roundtable discussions in which they would participate. Topics of the first breakout session included enhancing metadata for access, accessibility issues that impact access to information and collections, accessibility considerations in licensing, and campus and community partnerships to increase accessibility. Topics of the second breakout session included providing access to local and unique collections, and emerging issues in accessibility—what’s next? Each table had a designated facilitator and note taker.

Jordan Fields, manager of the Marmot Digital Archive at the Marmot Library Network, a nonprofit library technology consortium in Colorado, presented “Connecting the Dots: Collaborating to Create Integrated Local Collections.” The Marmot Digital Archive was created because libraries and communities in the shared geographic region have local collections that should be discovered by others. Making items accessible online gives people the opportunity to discover unique collections they wouldn’t be able to see in person, like video histories, physical objects, quilts, and public art. The archive creators prepared a discovery layer with user needs in mind; they had a common goal of access from the user’s initial point of need. This goal resulted in integrating archive items into library catalogs (e.g., when searching a local catalog, archive items are embedded within search results in an “Explore More” box) and linked data. The Marmot Digital Archive (established in 2014) currently has 15 member libraries participating, more than 40 live projects, more than 27,000 digital objects, and more than 12,000 entity records. A subcommittee determined necessary fields and relationships in entity records. Going forward, the archive’s challenges and plans include preservation and accessibility.

Laura Wood, associate university librarian for research and education at Harvard Library, gave closing remarks in the presentation “Crossing State Lines: Enabling Sharing of Accessible Content.” Wood started by defining students with disabilities and accessible print materials (either electronic or fixed, accessible files replicate document structure and textual content) to set the context for her talk. Students are the largest stakeholder group in academic libraries, and have varying and complex needs. One way to meet these needs is with universal design principles. While accessibility is the responsibility of everyone, it is often perceived as being the purview of a very small group—which should not be the case. Wood presented court rulings that resulted in institutions addressing the needs for accessible print materials, along with a series of vignettes to illustrate the challenges of creating and sharing these materials. She pointed out that libraries and librarians are positioned to share knowledge widely and to initiate conversations about accessibility. The white paper “Libraries: Take AIM! Accessible Instructional Materials and Higher Education” presents an investigation of student needs and library involvement. Wood provided examples of what we can do—be an ally, assess your environment, and negotiate for accessibility from publishers and vendors—and then invited participants to take a minute to think about what else can be done. Her encouragement to think of real-world solutions was a fitting conclusion to the symposium.

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