Supporting Print Impaired Students –the Academic Library Viewpoint

Rachel was invited to speak in a session called "Accessibility - are you missing a strong market for your content?" chaired by Huw Alexander, Digital Sales Manager at SAGE Publications. The session focuses on a critical aspect of the digital marketplace: accessibility of digital content; unpacking the issues experienced by publishers, users and institutions. Rachel provided an overview of the difficulties faced by an academic library in obtaining suitable content for print impaired students and the benefits to publishers of getting this right. The presentation outlined the process of obtaining accessible format content to demonstrate the staff time and effort involved, along with statistical evidence of how demand for the service has increased and is likely to be unsustainable without further support of the publishing industry. The problems of varying and onerous licensing as well as best practices in terms of response time and file delivery were discussed from the experience of library staff at Leeds Metropolitan University.