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 at the end of the section.
EBSCO Ebooks
Screen Reader 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.