Laura Solomon grew up in upstate New York with a mother who was an avid reader. She took Laura and her brother to the local library about once per week.
“My favorite memory about a library wasn’t directly in a library,” recalls Laura. “When I got the chicken pox and was out of school for days, my mother asked the children’s librarian for books I would like. The librarian sent her home with a huge stack. I loved every book!”
Now, Laura helps libraries with digital marketing and website design for the Ohio Public Library Information Network. I reached out to Laura after the company I work for, NoveList, began work on digital accessibility. And, of course, that made me think of my library friends and their commitment to accessibility.
So, I asked Laura to share her expertise and tips. But first, Laura wants to clear up one misconception. I thought that the push for full compliance was the result of a new law. I was wrong.
Laura says there are no new legal risks, but there is likely to be much more scrutiny and even fewer accepted excuses for not meeting legal obligations after the deadlines.
“There are no changes to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regarding web accessibility,” declares Laura. “Websites have had the legal requirement of being accessible to people with disabilities for many years. The Department of Justice has long stated this clearly.”
Laura says that, in April 2024, the Department of Justice added two new rulings that impact your library.
There is now an official deadline for compliance for state and local government entities. The specific deadline depends on the population of your library’s community, which is not the same thing as your library’s service area.
“The Department of Justice has drawn a line in the sand because too many government entities (including libraries) have been ignoring the legal requirement.”
Laura Solomon
In addition, there is now an official standard for compliance. WCAG 2.1 AA is a set of internationally recognized guidelines developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to ensure web content accessibility, particularly for people with disabilities. This is the standard your library must meet in order to be compliant.
So, it’s time for your library to get serious about compliance. Where should you start?
“I would recommend starting with automated testing, using a tool like Webaim’s WAVE tool,” advises Laura. “However, I always recommend testing with more than one tool. They will usually catch slightly different errors.”
“Most tools (including WAVE) only check one page at a time, not an entire site at once. It takes manual testing to really dig into things correctly. However, it’s a good starting point for most laypersons.”
“It’s important to understand that the WCAG standard is a technical standard. It’s used to evaluate the code that creates the website, not what you see on the screen. That means it often requires someone with both web development and web accessibility expertise to completely remediate issues.”
“WebAIM also has a great introduction to web accessibility. The best thing a library can do right now is to add accessibility checks into content workflows.”
That means, for every piece of content your library creates, a library will need to check for accessibility, including color contrast, alt text, keyboard navigation, and structured content.
Laura says the most common accessibility mistake she encounters on library websites is a lack of alt text or poorly written alt text.
“As the web has become increasingly visual, much of that content has become completely unavailable to people using assistive technology,” explains Laura. “Alternative text is mission-critical and not just a nicety.”
“Another thing that many libraries do is to pack images with tons of text. This isn’t just problematic for web accessibility, but it’s also poor design.”
Laura says another problem that’s become increasingly pervasive is the use of accessibility overlays, which are third-party products that usually have some kind of button that provides additional accessibility features when activated.
“Accessibility advocates have long begged site owners to stop purchasing these,” says Laura. “They can often interfere with the technology that people with disabilities already use to make their online experiences accessible. Also, they don’t protect libraries from lawsuits. If your library has purchased one of these, I strongly recommend removing it and focusing on making your website accessible from the ground up.”
Your library may feel overwhelmed by both the scope of this work and the cost.
“To be honest, retrofitting a website for accessibility can be more time-consuming and expensive than starting with a framework that already provides accessibility as part of its core functioning,” says Laura. “Sadly, a lot of popular content management systems don’t do this or only provide some accessibility features.”
Your library’s website isn’t the only thing you need to review to be compliant. PDFs, e-newsletters, and social media graphics should also be considered. Laura says it’s difficult to make PDFs compliant. The best advice is to not use PDFs. As for e-newsletters, they have the same requirements as any regular web page. Social media graphics require alt text.
“It’s important to understand that web accessibility includes everything,” shares Laura. “It includes databases, apps, and anything else that connects to the internet. It also includes a lot more than just the blind or visually impaired.”
“People with disabilities are not a small part of our communities; statistically, they represent at least 1 in 4 people. Libraries are about serving their communities, and this is an especially important way in which they can do that, regardless of legal requirements.”
Laura Solomon
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