Improving academic library website accessibility for people with disabilities
| Date | 10 November 2014 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/LM-11-2013-0107 |
| Published date | 10 November 2014 |
| Pages | 565-581 |
| Author | Lisa Billingham |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,HR in libraries |
Improving academic library
website accessibility for people
with disabilities
Lisa Billingham
Library, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explain how Edith Cowan University (ECU) Library
improved the accessibility of their web site, aiming for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
version 2.0 Level AA. It describes the results obtained.
Design/methodology/approach – Initial testing by consultants was conducted in October 2012.
The web site was defined as all webpages which appear part of the library web site, including supplier
webpages, plus pages from the university web site and library web site. Library staff applied the
recommendations to pages which they could edit, and discussed the recommendations with suppliers
to improve their product’s accessibility. The web site was re-tested in June 2013.
Findings – ECU Library web site failed WCAG 2.0 Level A standard in the initial testing and
re-testing. Many individual pages which failed initially passed the re-test. The smallest improvement
was seen in suppliers’ web sites.
Practical implications – This paper could help libraries to improve web site accessibility, as it
covers negotiating with suppliers to upgrade their web sites, plus upgrading editable webpages.
It shows initial and re-testresults, allowinglibraries to compare theirresults to those of ECU. Legislation
and guidelines state web sites should be accessible to all users and organisations providing non-accessible
web sites risk being sued.
Social implications – A web site not complying with WCAG version 2.0 would be very difficult for
people with disabilities to access. Upgrading ECU Library’s web site will provide all users with more
equal access to the resources.
Originality/value – This study describes problems in upgrading academic library webpages and
related supplier web sites and organisation web site to improve accessibility for people with disabilities.
Keywords People with disabilities, W3C, WCAG, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines,
Web site accessibility, World Wide Web Consortium
Paper type Case study
Introduction
Organisations are placing more importance on their online presence via user-friendly
and interactive web sites which inform the public, provide information, collect
data and feedback, offer goods or services, etc. To quantify this, there are almost three
million businesses and government agencies with web sites hosted by major internet
service providers in Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2013).
The vast majority of Australian tertiary education organisations use web sites to
provide information to prospective, current, and former students about their courses
and the services available. Most also provide a selection of online courses.
Specifically, the academic library can provide all of the following infor mation and
services via its web site: information literacy guides, databases of academic articles,
webOPAC, library consortium catalogue, discovery layer catalogue, searc h facility for
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0143-5124.htm
Received 9 November 2013
Revised 18 January 2014
Accepted 29 January 2014
Library Management
Vol. 35 No.8/9, 2014
pp. 565-581
rEmeraldGroup Publishing Limited
0143-5124
DOI 10.1108/LM-11-2013-0107
The author acknowledges many colleagues who assisted with editing of the library webpages
and supplier products to improve their accessibility.
565
Improving
academic library
website
accessibility
document delivery service, and authentication to all of the above. It is apparent,
therefore, that the academic library web site is integral to the library user’s experience.
The Edith Cowan University (ECU) University Librarian was determined to
improve the accessibility of the library web site despite the expected cos t in
consultants’ fees and staff time, and commissioned a review of the web site for the
reasons below.
Reasons that ECU Library initiated web site review
1. It will provide all students, staff, and community users with more equal access to our
online resources irrespective of any d isability they may have
The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines disability in relation to three
factors: impairment, activity limitation, and societal p articipation (World Health
Organization, 2013b).
WHO estimates that “overa billion people, about 15% of the world’s population, have
some form of disability” (World Health Organization, 2013a). In addition, the WHO Global
Burden of Disease study, 2004 update, found that 15.3 per cent of the world’s population
had “moderate to severe” disability (World Health Organisation, 2008).
However, 84.5 per cent of ECU students in 2013 were Australian (Edith Cowan
University, 2013), and havea different reported prevalence of disability. Almost 20 per cent
of Australians reported a disability in the 2009 census (Australian Bureau of Statistics,
2011). In the “need for assistance” section in the census, it notes that 8.9 per cent of
people with disabilities needed help with schooling or employment and 10.8 per cent
needed help with reading or writing tasks. Disabilities can include problems with
sight, hearing, touch, movement, speech, or cognitive processes, and many people
have more than one disability.
Many people with a disability do not declare it, and generally are not required to do
so, and so web site developers do not know the exact proportion of their users who
have a disability.
International web standards organisation the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C),
through their Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), produced the Web Content
Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 W3C recommendations (W3C, 2008). The W3C
recommendations state: “Following these guidelines will make content accessible to
a wider range of people with disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness
and hearing loss, learning disabilities, cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech
disabilities, photosensitivity and combinations of these. Following these guidelines will
also often make your Web content more usable to users in general” (W3C, 2008).
The WCAG web site (W3C, 2008) gives several “layers of guidance” on how to meet
WCAG 2.0 W3C recommendations:
(1) Principles for web accessibility
.Perceivable – “users must be able to perceive the information being presented”.
.Operable – “users must be able to operate the interface”.
.Understandable – “users must be able to understand the information as well
as the operation of the user interface”.
.Robust – “content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted
reliably by a wide variety of user agents, inc luding assistive technologies”
including “as technologies and user agents evolve, the content should
remain accessible”.
566
LM
35,8/9
To continue reading
Request your trial