Providing accessible content can be a costly and timeconsuming activity for individual libraries who have a legal and ethical duty to support their students who have disabilities. As access to online content has grown and funding for support diminished, libraries are increasingly looking to the benefits of using their collective effort to assess accessibility of thirdparty content and then work with publishers and other suppliers to find solutions. The session will set the scene and provide some case studies from UK universities that show how we are supporting students with disabilities in their use of library content. Libraries have been working individually and collectively to raise the topic of accessibility with publishers and vendors, many of whom have engaged with their customers. In some cases quite simple changes to publisher platforms can produce effective changes. In others a much greater investment is needed. The speakers will use their own experience to outline this topic which we hope will be relevant to librarians, publishers, system vendors and others.

1. Supporting the Accessible Format Service
at King’s College London
UKSG conference, Harrogate 10th-12th April 2017
Nadia Casagranda – King’s College London

2. King’s College London
• 28,900 students (2015/2016)
• Mostly on-campus courses, with
some distance learning
• 2,890 students with a disability
(10%) – of this 42% dyslexia,
3.5% visual/hearing impairment

3. Library services – a few highlights
• 67.5k ejournals, 13.7k print serials, 338 databases, 457k
ebooks, 956.6k monographs
• 6.2m full-text article downloads, 2.1m ebook sections
accessed
• 4.2m searches on Library Search + catalogue
• Course reading list material - core and recommended texts
are purchased in electronic format as well as print

4. Library Services support for disabled
users
• Assistive technology room and software
• free ILLs, book fetching, extended loans
• Accessible Format Service (AFS)
• Frontline staff with functional responsibility for disability at
each library site

5. How the project came about
• Cuts to disability allowance has led to pressure on library to
increase support
• Objectives in LS Operational plan:
 Eresources accessibility & IT resources guides (Jun 16)
 SensusAccess (Jan 17)
 Develop AFS - Subscriptions and Interlending to support
obtaining AF files; 3-month trial to assess how to best
resource and scale up the service

6. Trial setup
• 90% of AF file requests are for book chapters
• Workflow discussions with AFS and Acquisition Services –
detailed breakdown of procedures and of remits viz ebooks
• Early talks with BL to provide plain
PDFs alternative to BL On Demand
• Proposal document written and
approved November 2016

7. A few key facts and figures
• Trial ran from early Dec 16 to mid March 17 and treated as
high priority alongside team’s key priorities
• Two S&I staff involved; this was key to keep close track,
analyse issues and assess impact
• 55 AF requests handled (70% in Dec) and range of publishers
contacted. Owning item is prerequisite for requesting files
• Most work done via email. Stats log tracked turnaround and
staff time, publisher patterns, and was useful working tool

8. Challenges
• Staff time intensive - half day each day in Dec, at team peak
time for key services and work
• Learning curve due to number of request methods, publisher
requirements, AF file issues
• Unpredictable demand and added times if course tutor did
not use MyReadingList service
• User needs assessment and interaction stayed with AFS –
form introduced later in trial to ensure consistency in info
provided

9. Outcomes
• High level of support for AFS in Dec/Jan had a substantial
impact on S&I key priorities and core services
• AFS was able to handle higher volume of initial user queries;
It reduced training and decision-making required by SLAs
• Collaborative experience highly rated as a key positive:
played to the teams’ different strengths, shared purpose. In
line with our Quality Service standard and “one library, one
service” ethos

10. Recommendations (draft)
• Seasonal Aug/Sept and late Nov/Dec peaks coincide for both
teams – additional temporary support required, to be used as
shared resource, to adequately resource and enable scaling up
of the AFS service
• S&I can support AFS at quieter times; develop expertise in
team by involving more staff
• AFS to involve Partnership & Liaison and Acquisition Services
more in disability discussions re: advocacy of MyReadingList

11. Wider context reflections
• Publishers more aware – discuss as part of functionality
enhancements, advocate signing up to RNIB Bookshare
• Reduce effort duplication through community collaboration:
 Central registry of publishers’ contacts
 Standardise forms, use institution code?
• Is there a role for book suppliers
• Searching and navigating to resources is equally important –
consider as part of discovery tool and LMS reviews, and at
tenders for new systems

12. Thank you
Nadia Casagranda
Library Services
King’s College London
nadia.casagranda@kcl.ac.uk