[WEB4LIB] text only sites

[Margaret Escherich]

I suspect you're talking about what you're planning for your redesign,
rather than your current pages, no?

In any case, separate text-only pages, if that's the only way you can
provide ADA accessible information, are a good idea.  (IMHO, ADA-accessible
pages to begin with, instead of 'seperate but equal' sites, are a better
idea...)

Having given my 2 cents, try http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/betsie/.  I have
been meaning to experiment with it; the demos look good.  It is
self-reportedly the automatic text-only generator used by the BBC.

-Margaret Escherich
 Oakland Public Library
 Oakland, CA

> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib at webjunction.org
> [mailto:web4lib at webjunction.org]On Behalf Of Gimon, Charles A
> Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 1:59 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: [WEB4LIB] text only sites
>
>
> Maybe I'm missing something, but I had no trouble at all browsing through
> your public website using Lynx on WinNT and FreeBSD. What pages
> do you think
> you'll need to provide text-only versions of? Are they in a version that's
> not public right now?
>
> (I'm not including your web OPAC here--that's a whole separate discussion
> about vendors and their many shortcomings. I doubt any of us have
> the access
> and control over our catalog interfaces that we really need.)
>
> --Charles Gimon
>   Web Coordinator
>   Minneapolis Public Library
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Tana Elias [mailto:telias at scls.lib.wi.us]
> > Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 3:03 PM
> > To: Multiple recipients of list
> > Subject: [WEB4LIB] text only sites
> >
> >
> > Hello.  I'm in the process of planning for a redesign of our
> > site and it
> > looks like we'll have to provide text-only access to some of our
> > pages.  Are others doing this currently?  If so, I'd like to
> > know if you
> > create the alternative text-only pages one by one or if you
> > use a software
> > package or service to strip your pages of bells and whistles
> > so they're
> > accessible to all.  Also, do you provide an exact text-only
> > duplicate of
> > your site, or only provide text-only for those pages that
> > cause ADA problems?
> >
> > I'm really hoping there's some service out there that will do
> > it for me
> > rather than maintaining two separate versions of each page!
> >
> > If people would respond directly to me, I'd be happy to post
> > the results to
> > the list.
> >
> > Tana Elias
> > Madison (WI) Public Library
> >