[Forwarding from Brian Kelly. --Peter Suber.]
>From time to time there are discussions on this list on the accessibility of content hosted in repositories. However such discussions tend to die out, in part, I feel, due to the difficulties in addressing the accessibility of PDFs in a scalable way - I suspect few authors add alt text to images in their word processors, for example and repository managers aren't in a position to do this. However although WCAG accessibility guidelines tended to be prescriptive (images must have alternative text) the BSI's recently published BS 8878 Web accessibility Code of practice is more pragmatic and achievable, requiring, for example, providers of Web services to have an accessibility statement. I recently had a quick look for accessibility statements on repository Web sites but couldn't find anything related to repository items (the statement I did find were about the repository Web site interface). I have written a draft accessibility statement which I am publishing as something to start a discussion on regarding what repository managers should be doing in this area. Note the intention is not to add significant barriers to providing repository content but to document achievable practices. The post is available at: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/web-accessibility-institutional-r epositories-and-bs-8878/ Comments welcome. Thanks Brian -------------------------------- Brian Kelly UKOLN, University of Bath, BATH, UK, BA2 7AY Email: b.ke...@ukoln.ac.uk Phone: +44 1225 383943 Web site: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ Blog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/briankelly/ Twitter (automated posts): http://twitter.com/ukwebfocus/
