ebooks From strategy to practice

The long view o Publisher accessibility awareness influences reading lists (eg Oxford) or library procurement (Dundee). o Librarians and disability support staff offer wider PDF service, increasing demand for accessible pdfs. o Publishers seek to save money on PDF provision so invest in accessible ebooks. o Publishers put pressure on rest of supply chain to maintain their accessibility investments. o Most textbooks become available on accessible ebook platforms or devices.

Research & guidance - 1 o JISC TechDis research and summary on accessible ebook platforms o Towards Accessible e-Book Platforms Research Towards Accessible e-Book Platforms Research o Towards Accessible e-Book Platforms - guidance for publishers Towards Accessible e-Book Platforms - guidance for publishers o Moving Towards Accessible e-Book Platforms - guidance for library and information professionals Moving Towards Accessible e-Book Platforms - guidance for library and information professionals

Research & guidance - 2 o RNIB publisher advice centrepublisher advice centre o RNIB ebook advice and guidance - formats, comparisons etc.ebook advice and guidance o Practical guides for publishers and users o Can everyone read your books? (doc, 91) Can everyone read your books? (doc, 91) o Can everyone use your eBook reader? (doc, 48kb) Can everyone use your eBook reader? (doc, 48kb)

Achievements – 1 Buy-in o Joint statement on TTS 2010/11 (with significant impact on top 100 booksales). o Joint statement on ebook accessibility 2012 o “Publishers are committed to working with the advocacy organisations working for people with print impairment to ensure that our common ambition is achieved – making mainstream ebooks accessible to those with print impairments.”

Achievements – 2 Ownership We are therefore looking to work together: o with the developers of ebook devices and platforms to ensure that these provide the accessibility features which serve the needs of the widest possible market; o with the actors in the supply chain for ebooks – digital asset distributors, wholesalers, retailers, and library services – to ensure that they are aware of the needs of print impaired readers, and that the supply chain itself is accessible to them; o with people with print impairment to ensure that they know which assistive technologies are most appropriate to their needs and to help them to identify ebooks that are accessible to them; o with learning providers and libraries to support them in their obligations to provide learning resources in accessible formats.

Achievements – 3 Standards o National occupational standards for Publishing redrafted early o Previous standards had no mention of accessibility. o Current standards explicitly reference it in over 40 different contexts across a wide range of industry roles.

Achievements – 4 Training Free training modules being developed with JISC TechDis and EDitEUR – see online training module and accessible versiononline training moduleaccessible version

Achievements – 5 Self awareness

Achievements – 6 Metadata ONIX code list 196 o Full list here Full list here o No reading system accessibility options disabled (except) o Table of contents navigation o Index navigation o Reading order o Short / Full alternative descriptions o Visualised data also available as non-graphical data o Accessible math content o Print-equivalent page numbering

Down to earth.. Procurement - what to ask. Were disabled people involved in the testing? What disabilities? What results? What improvements resulted? How does your accessibility compare with your rivals? Which aspects of the RNIB guidance on ebooks or ebook readers do you fulfil?

Indicators – ebook platforms. o Text to speech? o Keyboard accessible skip-links? o Maximum zoom size? o Reflow of zoomed text? o Contrast / colour change? o Meaningful accessibility statement?

Indicators - hardware readers. o Text to speech? Content or menus? o Maximum zoom size? o Contrast / colour change? o Dexterity needed to work the device. o Accessibility of support software / webpages?

Play time o Try some readers and recommend which you’d use for o Dyslexic user o Partially sighted user o Blind user