Accessibility statement for LibGuides

This accessibility statement applies specifically to the University of Birmingham LibGuides. Content on LibGuides is produced by the University of Birmingham and hosted on a platform provided by Springshare.

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • zoom in up to 200% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

Where we can, we’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible is this website?

We know some parts of this website aren’t fully accessible:

  • Some Word and PDF documents may not be accessible. In particular they may lack headings and alternative text for images. Where documents provide subject information, their content has been repeated in an accessible page, and the document has been provided as an alternative format. Other documents have been created as templates to be filled in e.g. as a method for organising a subject search, and these templates have been made as accessible as possible.
  • Some pages contain headings in non-consecutive order or skip heading levels.
  • Some pages do not use headings, and instead use bold text.
  • Some images have insufficient alternative text.
  • Link text is not always descriptive, and some pages contain unlabelled links.
  • Some pages contain text which is low contrast.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, audio recording or braille:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you as soon as possible.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page or think we’re not meeting the requirements of the accessibility regulations, please contact library@mail.libanswers.bham.ac.uk.

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations. If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

You are welcome to visit us in person when our libraries are open or check our Help and Contacts page for the latest information about how to contact us.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Compliance status

The University of Birmingham is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

  • Some Word and PDF documents may not be accessible. In particular they may lack headings and alternative text for images (WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 2.4.6 Headings and Labels and1.1.1 Non-text Content)

We are working with page authors to fix these issues as soon as possible.

Content that is not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

The site also contains links to a range of third party content and functionality. These may direct you to a related service, or partner we work with, where we are not responsible for the accessibility of this content.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We have provided training and guidance to page authors and are working with them to check and edit their content to remove accessibility issues.

Where accessibility issues are caused by the LibGuides platform itself, rather than the content we have created, we will liaise with Springshare to report the problem and seek a solution.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 9 September 2020.

This website was last tested on 3 September 2020. The testing was carried out by Library Services staff, using a manual checklist, plus the WAVE, Lighthouse, and Tota11y testing tools. A sample of 12 guides were tested (10% of the total published guides), including: the University of Birmingham LibGuides home page; the five guides which received most usage during the 19/20 academic year; and six other guides sampled at random from the four guide types.

 

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