Gayle Schechter, AUC GLAM Exhibition Coordinator, was featured in the this summer’s Society of American Archivists’ Newsletter, Description Section! She wrote on the library’s efforts to to improve description on the digital portals in order to make digital images more accessible to a wider range of users.

“In order to make sure that content is accessible to our users with disabilities, it is important to tailor our online materials to work with assistive technology, which is any technology or device that enhances the capabilities of its user. This includes
making sure our websites can accommodate different modes for users to input text, and creating accurate descriptive text that can be easily read by screen readers that assist the visually impaired. The overarching principles from which we derive how
to implement digital accessibility are taken from W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). While WCAG can be broad and open to interpretation, the most important concept to remember is that a textual equivalent is needed for any non-text content: images, video, and audio.”

Click HERE to read the article in full.