In this summer’s issue, we’re celebrating libraries of all sorts, including both the law libraries where many of us spend our workdays and the wide array of other libraries we may visit as patrons, tourists, or researchers. When planning your next summer getaway or staycation, consider dropping into a new-to-you library or branch and checking out (literally or metaphorically) all it has to offer. There are some beautiful spaces, amazing collections, and wonderful people to be found in libraries around Chicagoland and beyond, and all of them are worth celebrating!
Thinking of celebrations in libraries turns my thoughts to outreach efforts, and that’s one place where web accessibility can and should be at the forefront of our plans. Libraries reach out to their audiences in many ways, but whether that’s through social media, video, newsletters, or other methods, we want all our potential visitors and users to feel welcome. What better way to do that than to ensure our online outreach is accessible!
Social Media
While not every library uses social media, those that do generally use it as an outreach tool, sharing announcements, memes, short videos, and more. Larger libraries may have a dedicated staffer or team to create and monitor their social media presence, but in smaller libraries, this task is often just a small part of someone’s job or may be shared by everyone on an ad hoc basis. If you work with social media in your role, you have the chance to promote your library and improve accessibility every time you post.
Each social media platform has its own array of accessibility features and, unfortunately, its pitfalls or inaccessible elements. But regardless of the platform, the best practices for accessible social media are very similar to those for other forms of web communication: for instance, you should provide alt-text for images, avoid using images to convey text, and keep color contrast in mind. Good overviews of these guidelines (including suggestions for popular platforms) are available from Section508.gov and Yale University.
But there are some additional considerations for social media outreach that may not be as common in other types of web communication. For instance, hashtags can pose accessibility difficulties, particularly since screen readers will often try to pronounce them as a single word, which may be completely unintelligible. Using camelCase or PascalCase can help, since screen readers are more likely to identify the individual words in the long string of letters. Hashtags typed in camelCase or PascalCase also can be easier to interpret for users with other visual or processing differences, as well as those quickly skimming your post.
The image-oriented “gestures” we use in social media should also be considered for accessibility. Animated GIFs, especially those that flash rapidly, can also pose accessibility difficulties for many people with disabilities. If you choose to use them, be sure any text they contain has a high enough contrast for easy legibility, and don’t rely on them to convey meaning. Emojis can generally be interpreted by screen readers, but too many in a row can be tedious to listen to, while emoticons (like the shrug ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) are incomprehensible to screen readers and so should be avoided.
Video
Whether shared on social media, via email, or on a library’s website, video can be a great way to build enthusiasm and display how processes work. But since video relies on simultaneous listening and viewing, possibly at a rapid pace, a larger percentage of your audience may have difficulty comprehending the video as originally recorded, so be sure to follow best practices for video accessibility and investigate the accessibility features on your chosen platforms, such as YouTube or Vimeo.
In general, captions or subtitles are useful for many people regardless of their hearing capacities, so they are a necessity for all types of videos with audible content. Especially for longer videos, a separate transcript can be helpful for review or preview of the information conveyed in the video. Many programs and services will provide auto-generated or AI-created captions and transcripts, and these are a good place to start, but a human check is always required, and extensive edits may be needed. If your video includes images or other content not conveyed by the audio (such as diagrams, meaningful gestures, or screen captures), then audio description is also a must. If you plan ahead, though, it’s possible to avoid the need for extra audio description or to plan pauses where it can be inserted. You can learn more about both methods (and also about adding audio description to existing video) from Section508.gov.
Newsletters
Many libraries provide some sort of regular update to their communities, and common online options include email newsletters, PDF versions of print newsletters, or flipbooks. In general, email newsletters can be made easily accessible by following a few guidelines that apply to email communication generally, as outlined in these helpful guides from Amherst and Harvard. Alt-text and color contrast are again important elements, but there are some common newsletter features to (re)consider.
For instance, some email templates for newsletters rely on a hidden table structure to organize the layout of the images and text. Tables in general are very confusing for screen readers to convey audibly, and it’s especially awkward when the table layout doesn’t correlate to the information being presented. Try to use columns and a responsive layout, rather than tables. Similarly, newsletters often prompt their readers to take actions like “Click here.” To someone skimming links with a screen reader, it won’t be clear what they’re clicking for, so a phrase like “Register for the database instruction session” or “Learn more about upcoming events” would make a better link text.
While newsletter formats like flipbooks or PDFs can readily replicate the experience and layout of a print newsletter, they are often the most difficult to make accessible. Depending on the platform, some flipbooks are wholly inaccessible, while others are comprehensible for people using assistive technology but difficult to navigate. Properly tagged PDFs can be reasonably accessible for screen readers, but the more complex the content and layout, the less accessible it is likely to be. PDFs can also be difficult to read or navigate on mobile devices or other small screens. Hopefully, as technologies improve and more vendors are aware of the importance of accessibility, options for PDFs, flipbooks, and similar media will improve.
