OA Books: Getting started with accessibility

In this presentation, Joanne Fitzpatrick discusses some of the ways in which small & medium-sized presses can 'get started' with improving the accesibility of their OA ebooks. Fitzpatrick explores legislation and requirements, and the various places in which accessibility must be monitored and supported. Fitzpatrick asks, to what extent have (or will) publisher workflows need to change in order to improve accessibility in OA books? Can small publishers meet and exceed legislative requirements? And, what barriers make this challenging? The presentation concludes by reviewing some of the tools available to support publishers, exploring both their benefits and limitations. 

 This presentation was delivered as part of Copim's "Publishing Workshop: Accessibility, Archiving and Metadata" on 27 November 2024. The workshop was co-organised by several groups currently collaborating on Copim's Open Book Futures project: Thoth Open Metadata, the project's Archiving & Preservation work package, and the project's Accessibility work package. The workshop was attended by representatives from 12 different publishing organisations, who kindly shared their knowledge and experience.