Accessibility Guide to Library Eresources: Vendors C-E

Resource type: Ebooks, journals

Web accessibility standard:

Instructions for screen reader and keyboard users:

Cambridge books online

Keyboard only and screen reader users:

On the results page use Alt+Down Arrow to open the reference sorting options. If you just down arrow the page will refresh automatically.

In Advanced Search, if you list the Form Fields choose the search boxes labelled & at the beginning. On the results page, references are listed after the Next and Last links. To access the check boxes for individual refine options on the results page, list the links on the page, move to a link and then Shift+Tab to move back to the check box for that link. The full text of some books is not accessible. Contact the Library Helpdesk if you are unable to read a book.

Cambridge journals online

Instructions for keyboard and screen reader users:

Screen reader users are unable to access the back issues of journals by browsing but can get to content by searching for article titles.

Database: Instructions for screen reader and keyboard users:

Full text is provided in HTML or PDF or in some cases both formats. Use the HTML version when available, as the accessibility of PDFs to screen reader users varies.

Articles can be listened to and the audio downloaded using ReadSpeaker. Choose the Listen link in the HTML full text record of an article to hear the audio file . If you use ReadSpeaker with a screen reader to stop the audio, list the links on the page and select Stop.

Keyboard users: To refine your search it is quicker to access the Search Options on the search pages rather than the Refine Results option on the results page. On the results page, to close the Relevance, Page Options and Share drop down boxes if you don't want to select any of the options in the list, tab back up to heading and press Enter.

Accessibility issues
Instructions for screen reader and keyboard users:

Full text is provided in HTML or PDF or in some cases both formats. Use the HTML version when available, as the accessibility of PDFs to screen reader users varies.

Articles can be listened to and the audio downloaded using ReadSpeaker. Choose the Listen link in the HTML full text record of an article to hear the audio file . If you use ReadSpeaker with a screen reader to stop the audio, list the links on the page and select Stop.

Keyboard users: To refine your search it is quicker to access the Search Options on the search pages rather than the Refine Results option on the results page. On the results page, to close the Relevance, Page Options and Share drop down boxes if you don't want to select any of the options in the list, tab back up to heading and press Enter.

Resource type: Ebooks

Web accessibility standard:

Dyslexic and visually impaired users:

The database has a built-in reader. Choose Read Online and then the Read Aloud button. Press the play button to activate the reader. Note that this play button cannot be accessed using a screen reader or keyboard.

Screen reader and keyboard only users:

Keyboard only users cannot access the Category, Full text and Advanced search options and may also find it easier to read the full text of a book once downloaded. Screen reader users will need to download the full text to read it. Downloaded text is available to read using Adobe Digital Editions. The RNIB https://www.rnib.org.uk/ provides guidance on using this software, as does the free Getting Started eBook that is installed along with the Adobe Digital Editions.

Some brief guidance is also provided below for screen reader users.

Table of contents navigation is provided. To enable a screen reader to move between this and the full text go to the Table of contents options button and choose to 'Hide panel after use'. To open subheadings in the table of contents use the right arrow key. To then access the full text press Enter, tab to hear 'book content' read out and then use the down arrow to read the full text. The screen reader will start reading after any headings, so use the up arrow if you want to check the heading. A search box allows you to search the full text for specific words, but a screen reader may start to read after the sentence where these words, so use the up arrow to access this text.

Resource type: Journals, Databases, Ebooks

Web accessibility standard:

Instructions for screen reader and keyboard users

All EBSCO vendor databases have a read aloud feature for HTML articles that may be manually activated.

Choose the HTML Full Text option, the Listen icon appears on the Tools list just under the title of the article. You may select three different accents and reading speeds. To pause the reading, click on the pause button.

Access the database, enter your search terms and press Enter to conduct the search. The resulting references are listed so that the "Add to folder" option appears after the title of the article it relates to.

Full text is provided in HTML or PDF or in some cases both formats. Use the HTML version when available. If only a PDF is provided and you are using JAWS, use Adobe Reader 7.0 to convert the article, but it will not always read in a linear fashion.  If full text is not provided you can check if the Serials Solutions 360Link! has access to it via another supplier.  Add the references you are interested in to a folder and opt to list them, then if you use links list in JAWS, the email, print and save to disk options are towards the bottom of the list. To carry out another search choose the Advanced Search link.

For keyboard users there are problems navigating an individual record using Internet Explorer, making it difficult to return to your results.  You are advised to use the links to full text etc provided in the results list or use Firefox instead.

For more accessibility information on EBSCO databases see link below.

Ebsco ebooks

Screenreaders users: On the results page to refine by publication date you cannot tab between the from and to dates. Instead amend the from date, if relevant, list the Forms Fields on the page and choose Filter by to date to enter the date. Keyboard users will experience problems refining their search by publication in the search results page. To narrow your search to full text only, scholarly references etc, choose the Advanced Search link, below the search boxes on the results page. On the Advanced Search page the options to refine your search appear below Search Options, which is given heading level 3. 

All ebooks have the option to view as eBook Full Text and some have the option to Download This eBook (Offline). Screen reader users will find it easier to choose the download option. If the download option is not available, it is recommended that screen reader users configure Adobe Reader so that PDFs don't display in the browser. PDFs display one page at a time. To download ebooks you will need to create a My EBSCOhost account. Downloaded ebooks open in Adobe Digital Editions. The RNIB provides guidance on using this software, as does the free Getting started with Adobe Digital Editions manual. Some brief guidance is also provided below for screen reader users: Table of contents navigation is provided in Adobe Digital Editions. To enable a screen reader to move between this and the full text go to the Table of contents options button and choose to 'Hide panel after use'. To open subheadings in the table of contents use the right arrow key. To then access the full text press Enter, tab to hear 'book content' read out and then use the down arrow to read the full text. The screen reader will start reading after any headings, so use the up arrow if you want to check the heading. A search box allows you to search the full text for specific words, but a screen reader may start to read after the sentence where these words appear, so use the up arrow to access this text.

Accessibility Information for EBSCO Interfaces

Database: Instructions for screen reader and keyboard users:

Full text is provided in HTML or PDF or in some cases both formats. Use the HTML version when available, as the accessibility of PDFs to screen reader users varies.

Articles can be listened to and the audio downloaded using ReadSpeaker. Choose the Listen link in the HTML full text record of an article to hear the audio file . If you use ReadSpeaker with a screen reader to stop the audio, list the links on the page and select Stop.

Keyboard users: To refine your search it is quicker to access the Search Options on the search pages rather than the Refine Results option on the results page. On the results page, to close the Relevance, Page Options and Share drop down boxes if you don't want to select any of the options in the list, tab back up to heading and press Enter.

accessibility issues
Instructions for screen reader and keyboard users:

Full text is provided in HTML or PDF or in some cases both formats. Use the HTML version when available, as the accessibility of PDFs to screen reader users varies.

Articles can be listened to and the audio downloaded using ReadSpeaker. Choose the Listen link in the HTML full text record of an article to hear the audio file . If you use ReadSpeaker with a screen reader to stop the audio, list the links on the page and select Stop.

Keyboard users: To refine your search it is quicker to access the Search Options on the search pages rather than the Refine Results option on the results page. On the results page, to close the Relevance, Page Options and Share drop down boxes if you don't want to select any of the options in the list, tab back up to heading and press Enter.

Resource type: Journals, Ebooks

Web accessibility standard:

The Emerald Insight website powered by Literatum meets the generally accepted requirements of W3C AA and section 508 accessibility standards.

Instructions for screen reader and keyboard users:

You will be taken to the Advanced Search page which has a couple of search boxes and defaults to searching for journals. If you list the Form Fields choose the second Search: Edit rather than the one at the beginning of the list. The radio buttons for below each search box, which relate to Match (whether you want to search for your keywords as a phrase, or just anywhere in an article) aren't labelled. They are in the order All, Any and Phrase. When you list the forms the combo boxes for AND, OR and NOT are labelled Phrase Combo box AND (AND is the default). Ignore the word phrase. 

On the results page article titles are not links or headings, so can't be browsed. After the reference details for each article are links to View HTML and View PDF. The HTML full text includes level headings to aid navigation, but isn't always available despite there being a link.

Advice from Vendor website:

Keyboard users:
The TAB key can be used to navigate through links within the site menu and the main text of each page. Once a link has been highlighted, use the ENTER key to activate the link. The content area is reached immediately after the header, making it easier to move around within a site.  There is a ‘skip to main content link’ at the top of the page so that you can quickly navigate to the most important sections of the page.

Instructions for screen reader users:

The pages use structured headers to aid legibility. The first header on the page is the main content header followed by any appropriate sub-headers.

There are a couple of search boxes on the home page of Emerald Fulltext.  If you list the Form Fields choose the second Search: Edit rather than the one at the beginning of the list.  If you do this you can choose whether to search within All content, journals or books.  

Results are listed in the order of article title (as a link), journal title, issue number, HTML and PDF full text (where available).  The HTML full text includes level headings to aid navigation.

Link to Emerald Insight accessibility web page