The Zahnow Library aims to select to electronic resources that follow the standards Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act and/or use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to insure accessibility for all patrons.
Below is a selection of database providers and information about their accessibility features. Please contact the library if you have questions about these or any of the Library's resources.
Ebook Central is designed to be accessible and provides tools for the blind and visually impaired. These tools include an accessibility mode for screen readers, keyboard navigation, and magnification options within the ereader. The accessibility mode requires an account.
Patrons can also change ebook fonts to OpenDyslexic, an open-source typeface designed to combat symptoms of dyslexia, directly from the Profile page through Ebook Central.
Some EBSCO databases provide a text to speech option for HTML Full Text articles. However, many articles are not available in HTML. When you have located an article, click on HTML Full Text and there will be an option to listen. You can also download these audio files in MP3 format.
PDFs published after 2004 are ADA compliant. EBSCO began providing its scanned pdfs with an Optical Character Reader (OCR) text layer in September 2004. For assistance with older pdfs, please contact the library.
Gale provide a Listen function for full-text articles. Wherever the Listen icon is present, there is the option to have the document read aloud. The Listen tool also allows you to download the audio file as a MP3.
JSTOR articles and chapters may be downloaded as PDFs. If a PDF is not tagged properly or found to be inaccessible to a screen reader, JSTOR will tag or reformat the document upon request. JSTOR allows up to three articles per request. You may contact the library to help facilitate these requests.
ProQuest strives to provide accessible content in HTML and PDFs. However, some older content was created from scanned images of original text and may not be accessible to screen readers. ProQuest offers an on-demand service that will use OCR (optical character recognition) technology to create a readable version of the text within the scanned image. PDFs that are downloaded rather than read in the ProQuest Interface provide more options to manipulate the text.
AVON provides captions and fully searchable transcripts are available for approximately 95% of all videos. Exceptions include non-English films (non-English languages are not currently transcribed), silent films, and videos containing no dialogue, such as musical performances (transcripts are limited to speech within the video and do not include an alternative textual presentation of the music).
Audio descriptions are not available for most videos.
Kanopy provides keyboard navigation, captions and interactive transcripts. Kanopy is committed to providing captions for all videos. If you find a video with no captions available, please email Kanopy and they will make the captions available with 3-4 days.