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Digital Accessibility Handbook for Libraries
296 pages, Paperback
Published June 26, 2025
4 people want to read
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October 1, 2025
This book provides an excellent overview for library workers to understand why accessibility is important and how to implement various accessibility strategies within their library.
The book covers some of the foundations of disability in the first chapter, such as: what the term disability means, societal models of disability, and various legal requirements around disability/accessibility. From there, most of the rest of the book covers implementing accessibility for: software, hardware, webpages, files, communications, events, and emerging technologies. While I'm not on the AI hype train, the book also has two specific chapters for accessibility concerns in AI and extended reality (i.e. virtual reality, augmented reality, etc.), which I found to be very measured and thoughtful (these two chapter make the book timely but may also date it more quickly). Beyond implementation, there are also helpful chapters on accessibility testing, negotiating accessibility with vendors, library staffing, and implementing accessibility on a budget. Overall, the topical breadth made this a very useful survey of the many areas in which a library may encounter accessibility concerns.
Within each chapter/topic, the authors provide useful information at a level that is easily comprehensible without getting into the details too much. A library worker doing accessibility work can use the book as a solid starting point but would need to further investigate particular strategies and tools discussed in the book to actually do the work. A good example of this is the WCAG standards, which are discussed in the book but not to the level needed to actually implement them. This is not the fault of the book, as there is not room to summarize the standards. Rather, the book makes clear that readers should review and understand the WCAG standards, particularly if one is implementing accessibility strategies in relevant areas. The other line that the authors tread carefully is recommending tools and resources. There are many tools and resources available and the authors recommend some core resources without being exhaustive, meaning that book content is likely to be relevant for a longer period of time. The final part of each chapter is an interview or excerpt from someone doing the pertinent work out in the world. I found these end-of-chapter snippets to be somewhat helpful, but not as useful as the chapter content itself.
Overall, I found this handbook to be a really solid and comprehensive starting point for the many digital accessibility issues that a library worker might encounter (and there are even a few pointers on accessibility in physical library spaces). This is definitely a book that you can hand to someone who is new to accessibility work -- or even someone with a fair understanding of accessibility work -- to have them gain a deeper understanding of the work to be done. That said, the book is a starting point for accessibility work in libraries, as each of the topics merits deeper investigation by those actually implementing accessibility strategies in their library. But if you need to understand the scope of the work to be done, this is the book that I am going to be reaching for again and again.
The book covers some of the foundations of disability in the first chapter, such as: what the term disability means, societal models of disability, and various legal requirements around disability/accessibility. From there, most of the rest of the book covers implementing accessibility for: software, hardware, webpages, files, communications, events, and emerging technologies. While I'm not on the AI hype train, the book also has two specific chapters for accessibility concerns in AI and extended reality (i.e. virtual reality, augmented reality, etc.), which I found to be very measured and thoughtful (these two chapter make the book timely but may also date it more quickly). Beyond implementation, there are also helpful chapters on accessibility testing, negotiating accessibility with vendors, library staffing, and implementing accessibility on a budget. Overall, the topical breadth made this a very useful survey of the many areas in which a library may encounter accessibility concerns.
Within each chapter/topic, the authors provide useful information at a level that is easily comprehensible without getting into the details too much. A library worker doing accessibility work can use the book as a solid starting point but would need to further investigate particular strategies and tools discussed in the book to actually do the work. A good example of this is the WCAG standards, which are discussed in the book but not to the level needed to actually implement them. This is not the fault of the book, as there is not room to summarize the standards. Rather, the book makes clear that readers should review and understand the WCAG standards, particularly if one is implementing accessibility strategies in relevant areas. The other line that the authors tread carefully is recommending tools and resources. There are many tools and resources available and the authors recommend some core resources without being exhaustive, meaning that book content is likely to be relevant for a longer period of time. The final part of each chapter is an interview or excerpt from someone doing the pertinent work out in the world. I found these end-of-chapter snippets to be somewhat helpful, but not as useful as the chapter content itself.
Overall, I found this handbook to be a really solid and comprehensive starting point for the many digital accessibility issues that a library worker might encounter (and there are even a few pointers on accessibility in physical library spaces). This is definitely a book that you can hand to someone who is new to accessibility work -- or even someone with a fair understanding of accessibility work -- to have them gain a deeper understanding of the work to be done. That said, the book is a starting point for accessibility work in libraries, as each of the topics merits deeper investigation by those actually implementing accessibility strategies in their library. But if you need to understand the scope of the work to be done, this is the book that I am going to be reaching for again and again.
Displaying 1 of 1 review