A Systematic Review of the Literature Concerning the Accessibility of Library Websites

Library and information science is a profession where the ethical responsibility of a librarian is to ensure that every user, regardless of caste, gender, colour, or any other material or physical trait, is able to access their required information. Now, people with disabilities had to meet particular requirements in order to access their information. Currently, websites are crucial platforms for creating, disseminating and preserving information. Web Accessibility Initiatives (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) developed one of such guidelines, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). A website should comply with WCAG to be accessible through assistive technologies used by disabled users. This book provides an overview of special requirements of disabled users, international laws & treaties, web accessibility guidelines, and several tools to evaluate the web accessibility of a website. Later, a systematic literature review of 40 relevant researchers was conducted in order to understand the current state of accessibility in the websites of educational institutions, more precisely, library websites. An outline of several initiatives from the Indian government is also compiled in the later sections of the book. Overall this book offers a comprehensive review of web accessibility as well as information on the status and development patterns of accessible websites around the world.