UW Libraries Blog

Accessibility


June 5, 2024

Community Fellows: A Platform for Graduate Student Leadership 

UW Libraries

Did You Know?  A few interesting facts we learned from each workshop:  Due to a lack of accessibility in online data visualizations, screen reader users extract information 62% less accurately, and spend 211% more time doing so. The average shelf life of a digital project is five years. WordPress is an easy, low-code/no-code way to…


January 30, 2024

February Update

UW Libraries

While there are many free learning workshops and drop-in help sessions as always (including Podcasting as Research and our LOVE DATA WEEK events!), don’t forget to make room for the fun and fascinating this February — from the launch of the 2024 Student Video Contest, our new board game collection, a unique Valentine’s Day event…


January 23, 2024

New Wheelchair Charging Stations Are Here!

UW Libraries

The UW Libraries have added four wheelchair charging stations, located in the Odegaard Undergraduate Library, the Open Scholarship Commons in Suzzallo Library, the Research Commons in the Allen Library, and the Foster Business Library. These charging stations were able to be purchased thanks to the UW’s Student Technology Fee (STF). The charging stations are from…


November 3, 2023

Accessible Study Room In Suzzallo – Now More Accessible!

UW Libraries

By UW Libraries Accessibility Working Group It is important to provide equitable environments that allow all students to feel comfortable studying at the Libraries. To that end, in the last few years we have improved accessibility in several ways around the Libraries: audited our physical spaces and electronic resources for accessibility; posted accessibility information on…


June 2, 2023

June Update

UW Libraries

We know there are so many things to think about at the end of the year, so we’ll keep this short! Above all, we want to extend congratulations to all graduating students — well done!! UW Libraries are proud to have been part of your UW journey, and we hope that you will stay connected…


April 28, 2023

May Update

UW Libraries

NEW! The Economist.com is now available from UW Libraries, adding to the free access to major global news publications you have as a UW student. From news to commentary and analysis on politics, finance, and business, The Economist provides insightful coverage on international drivers of change. The UW Libraries subscription includes full access to daily…


March 29, 2023

Values in Practice: Holding Our Vendors Accountable for Accessibility

UW Libraries

The UW Libraries has been assessing third-party subscription resources for accessibility for three years. These resources are the journal websites or database interfaces that researchers use to find information after being linked from the library catalog.  It has been an enormous learning experience for all of us. We first had to become familiar with accessibility…


November 21, 2022

Improving Web Accessibility, One Vendor at a Time

Hana Levay, Collection Assessment Librarian

The Libraries have been assessing all of our third-party subscription products for accessibility as defined by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). We report our findings to the vendor and in many cases, this process has resulted in system-wide updates to the product that improve accessibility for all users/clients. While we do not have the…