accessibility in library web sites in KY, a sad state of affairs

Library Web Accessibility at Kentucky’s 4-Year Degree Granting Colleges and Universities a paper by a Kentucky web development librarian. Guess what, despite the fact that the ADA pretty much mandates accessible web sites, we’re not seeing them.

Based on low levels of compliance with the basic principles of Web accessibility and the potential of legal threats, institutions need to take accessibility issues more seriously. While the impetus to do so should fall under the rubric of professional ethics rather than avoiding a legal threat, either reason will suffice. Much like issues involving copyright, librarians embrace, on ethical terms, the protection of intellectual property while, at the same time, the threat of litigation hangs over our heads. Ethics may be important but they are also cheap. Litigation, on the other hand, is expensive. On issues such as standards, librarians understand how ignoring cataloging standards could have a negative impact on accessing collections. Can we afford to ignore Web standards when doing so impacts accessibility? [unalog]