[Web4lib] Library Website

[Thomas Dowling]

I'm sure Jon can answer this at least as well as I can, but let me jump in.

Most publicly funded institutions of higher education in the U.S.
technically have a legal obligation [I am not a lawyer!] to make their
web sites comply with Section 508, though there's explicitly no
enforcement provision in that obligation.  Regardless, you'd probably
agree that you have an ethical obligation to make your site accessible
to any of your users who happen to have vision, motor, or cognitive
disabilities, especially when doing so is not very difficult.  Complying
with Section 508 or especially WCAG priority 2 (IMO) goes a long way
toward ensuring that level of accessibility.

If you comply with both the letter and the spirit of the HTML and CSS
specifications, you take advantage of built-in mechanisms that are
likely to make your pages work across browsers and versions; across a
wide range of screen resolutions and window sizes--or lack of windows
altogether in screen readers; and across a wide range of browser
configuration settings (e.g. disabling scripting, as Microsoft
continually recommends for IE users).

When explaining this to your director, do not get thrown off by claims
that standards-compliant web sites are more expensive to create, harder
to maintain, or inherently unattractive.  Compliance needs to be taken
into account at an early stage in the design process, but from that
point on does not add any great burden to creation and maintenance, and
does not restrict any half-way imaginative designer.



Thomas Dowling
tdowling at ohiolink.edu



On 4/15/2006 9:16 AM, Jon Goodell wrote:

> Hi Steven,
> 
> Can you explain in more detail why these standards are important to libraries, especially in the community college context?  How should I explain this to my library director and her superiors?
>  
> Thank you,
> Jon
>   
> Jon Goodell
> Technology Services & Reference Librarian
> Pulaski Technical College - Ottenheimer Library
> North Little Rock, AR
> 501-812-2718
> jgoodell at pulaskitech.edu
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org on behalf of Stiofan Perkins
> Sent: Fri 4/14/2006 7:26 PM
> To: Ian Chan; web4lib at webjunction.org
> Subject: RE: [Web4lib] Library Website
> 
> 
> 
> Ian:
> 
> An interesting list.  Only two of them pass the W3
> HTML validator, four of them pass the automated
> section 508 tests at Cynthia Says, and none of them
> pass the automated WAI tests also at Cynthia Says.
> While those results do not mean the pages are
> unaccessible, they do indicate that more attention
> needs to be paid to accessibility in library web page
> design.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Steven C. Perkins
> Coordinator of Reference Services
> MD Anderson Library
> University of Houston
> 
> 
> --- Ian Chan <afitc at uaa.alaska.edu> wrote:
> 
>> Hi Jon,
>>
>> This page lists several libraries that have
>> undergone web redesigns in
>> the last couple years:
>>
> http://www.lib.uaa.alaska.edu/about/project/libraries.php.
>> The
>> documentation from University of Washington was
>> especially helpful.  MIT
>> libraries has also done an excellent job tracing
>> their web development
>> process.
>>
>> Summary of our re-design process.
>> http://www.lib.uaa.alaska.edu/about/project/
>>
>> Nicely re-designed community college website:
>> http://dept.sccd.ctc.edu/sslib/
>>
>> One of my favorite university library web sites:
>> http://www.lib.umn.edu/
>> - re-designed in the last year or two?
>>
>>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>> Ian Chan
>> Assistant Professor
>> Web Services Librarian
>> UAA/APU Consortium Library
>> http://www.lib.uaa.alaska.edu/
>> 907.786.1835
>>
>>
> 
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