[Web4lib] Library Website

[Ian Chan]

Hi Jon,

There is a practical reason -- it helps the user who has difficulty
visually accessing web content.

While I worked at Seattle Central Community College, I was fortunate to
have the opportunity to work with a vision-impaired student.  Her only
means of receiving the content on our web site was via audio output from
JAWs.  

While accessibility guidelines were very helpful, listening in as she
used our site - and hearing her frustrations - was even more
instructive.  

For example, it was frustrating to listen to the site-wide menus (Find
Books and submenus, Find Articles and submenus, etc.) repeated at the
beginning of every library web page.  To fix this, we reformatted the
ASP output for the library's web pages to place the HTML for the
site-wide menu at the end of the code.  Visually, the menu still
appeared on the left (via CSS), but when the page was read by a screen
reader the menu links were read last.  

The number of vision-impaired students was a tiny percentage of the
total student population served.  Nonetheless, it made a difference to
them that we tried to meet their needs.  As I said earlier, we were
fortunate.  We stumbled into the situation while helping that student at
the Reference Desk.  I had configured our library site to meet as many
accessibility standards as time permitted but had not thought to contact
our Disability Support Services office to find users who could help test
the site.  

I learned that a little testing with diverse users can help.  It doesn't
cost much but does take more time.  We did not fix every problem but we
did receive feedback that our fixes were helpful.

There are a number of websites, articles, and books (some written by
librarians) that will provide excellent justification for striving to
meet accessibility guidelines.

BTW -- checkout these extensions for IE6 and Firefox:
http://www.visionaustralia.org.au/ais/toolbar/ &
https://addons.mozilla.org/addon.php?id=60.  They offer quick links for
testing accessibility.

Regards,

---------------------------------------------------------
Ian Chan
Assistant Professor
Web Services Librarian
UAA/APU Consortium Library
http://www.lib.uaa.alaska.edu/
907.786.1835


-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Goodell [mailto:jgoodell at pulaskitech.edu] 
Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2006 5:17 AM
To: Stiofan Perkins; Ian Chan; web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: RE: [Web4lib] Library Website

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