Operationalizing Image Accessibility Across Platforms, Providers, and Publishers

Digital accessibility is mission-critical for scholarly publishing. While publishers have made progress with born-accessible workflows, many still struggle with adding alternative text (alt text) for images--a fundamental requirement of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) for over 20 years. We continue to add undescribed images to digital publications and online libraries, widening the visual gap for blind and visually impaired people and for search engines that cannot "see" images. Missing alt text is also a critical fault for digital cataloging, creating a massive database of disorganized, visually inaccessible content. How do we operationalize this in a sustainable way? With a growing number of vendor solutions, what should publishers outsource, and what should they develop in-house? What is reasonable to expect from authors, and what should be handled by publishers? What is needed to integrate authoritative, descriptive metadata into content production lifecycles so that visual media are fully contextualized and explained to visually impaired people? || Learning Level: Mixed-Learning || Speakers: Caroline Desrosiers; Hannah Heckner; Michelle Urberg; Lettie Conrad

SSP Annual Meeting Session Learning Level

Mixed-Learning

Publication Date

2022 | Jun 03

44th Annual Meeting (2022)

34

“Building a More Connected Scholarly Community” The last 19+ months have been a fascinating contradiction, making us feel both painfully disconnected and also perhaps more bonded than ever before. How can we take the strengths we already possessed as a community, fold in lessons learned during the pandemic, and aim for being an even stronger, broader, and more connected community? Our Annual Meeting brings together academics, funders, librarians, publishers, service providers, technologists, and countless others with a communal interest and stake in the dissemination of scholarly information. We look forward to the 44th Annual Meeting as an opportunity to reconnect and to connect anew.

Caroline Desrosiers

1

CEO and Co-Founder, textBOX

Caroline Desrosiers is the Founder & CEO of Scribely, a company on a mission to make images and videos more accessible to blind and visually impaired people and more discoverable to search engines. Scribely’s team of expert writers specialize in writing alt text for images and audio description for videos, helping digital media providers create born-accessible visual content for a more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable world.

Hannah Heckner Swain

3

VP Product, Silverchair

As Vice President of Product, Hannah Heckner works to inform, prioritize, and execute on the Silverchair Platform Development Plan, as well as oversee the development of new Silverchair products. This includes serving as a representative of Silverchair’s product function at client, sales, and industry meetings; evaluating requests for platform enhancement and new features; facilitating Publisher Working Groups that discuss industry trends, publisher needs, and developing Silverchair solutions; and managing vendor relationships and internal implementation for 3rd party integrations. She has worked within academic publishing for over 10 years and has experience with both commercial and non-profit publishing and is a proud Member-at-Large of the Society for Scholarly Publishing Board of Directors.

Lettie Conrad

2

LYC Consulting

Lettie brings nearly 20 years’ experience in scholarly publishing to her diverse portfolio of product research and development projects. She is dedicated to helping information organizations cultivate a user-centered, standards-compliant approach to digital publishing and academic programs. Her expertise lies in optimizing user engagement for content discovery and access of academic content platforms. Previously, Lettie played a key role in establishing the product management program at SAGE Publishing. Currently, Lettie is an Associated Editor for Learned Publishing, a ‘chef’ with the SSP’s Scholarly Kitchen blog, and Information Science PhD candidate at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane.

Lettie Conrad

2

Senior Associate, Product R&D, Maverick Publishing Specialists

Lettie brings nearly 20 years’ experience in scholarly publishing to her diverse portfolio of product research and development projects. She is dedicated to helping information organizations cultivate a user-centered, standards-compliant approach to digital publishing and academic programs. Her expertise lies in optimizing user engagement for content discovery and access of academic content platforms. Previously, Lettie played a key role in establishing the product management program at SAGE Publishing. Currently, Lettie is an Associated Editor for Learned Publishing, a ‘chef’ with the SSP’s Scholarly Kitchen blog, and Information Science PhD candidate at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane.

Michelle Urberg

1

Affiliate Associate, Metadata Expert, Maverick Publishing Specialists