Web accessibility trends in university libraries and library schools

Abstract

PurposeOnly properly designed web sites are accessible to people with print disabilities. The purpose of this paper is to follow up on earlier investigations of this kind by looking at the web sites of all 56 ALA‐accredited library schools, and of the libraries on these campuses.Design/methodology/approachBobby 3.1.1 was used to evaluate compliance with major accessible web design guidelines. In addition, key web pages were checked manually for the presence of skip‐navigation components, and the sites' re‐design status was ascertained. The results were presented in the form of basic descriptive statistics, including percentages of Bobby‐approved pages and the average number of barriers per page. Correlations of the current accessibility data with older data sets and with library school ratings were also calculated.FindingsThe results indicate that despite an increase in accessibility, only 50 to 60 per cent of the web sites were free of Bobby‐detectable errors. Canadian sites were more accessible than US sites. Contrary to previous findings, recently redesigned sites tended to be more accessible. Highly ranked sites also tended to have higher accessibility scores. US sites showed a random‐like up‐and‐down movement in accessibility status between 2002 and 2006.Research limitations/implicationsThe collected data reflect compliance with only a subset of accessible design principles.Practical implicationsMore education and continued advocacy is needed to increase web accessibility at libraries and library schools and to help establish library schools as models of program accessibility.Originality/valueThis is the only study that provides trend information about the accessibility of a broader set of library and library school web sites.