A serendipitous meeting of minds: the background to the eBook accessibility audit (UK Higher Education)

Obtaining materials in alternative formats can be a costly and extremely time-consuming exercise. Where an electronically accessible resource cannot be found, a catalogue of interventions is precipitated in order to deliver an alternative format. The easiest way to resolve this would be to depend on existing mainstream methods of delivery (e.g. standard commercial eBook platforms) to offer inclusive access to all of our users at once. Sadly, there are currently no guarantees that the eBook platforms we subscribe to deliver a consistent standard of accessibility and even where such features exist they are not always well promoted. The eBook accessibility audit, which launched in August 2016 (a joint project of UK Higher Education Institution (HEI) disability and library services), supports a mainstreaming approach by seeking to introduce a benchmark for accessibility in eBook platforms. This will allow us, for the first time, to measure basic accessibility functionality and guide platform improvement towards the goal of implementing a meaningful minimum standard of accessibility for mainstream platforms.