Accessibility

We aim to be leaders in accessibility to our members, promoting equal opportunities for all individuals. ALA is working with internal and external stakeholders to develop regular website audit practices and conformance reporting.

Measures to support accessibility

The American Library Association takes the following measures to ensure accessibility of the ALA.org domain:

• Integrating accessibility into our procurement practices
• Appointing an accessibility officer
• Annual auditing of ALA.org domain through partnership with our developer
• Developing training resources on best practices to support ALA.org content managers

Conformance status

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) defines requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. It defines three levels of conformance: Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA. ALA is partially conformant with WCAG 2.1 level AA. Partially conformant means that some parts of the content do not fully conform to the accessibility standard.

Accessibility features include

• The presence of alternative text for images and tags for non-text-based functions
• Ability to increase page size to 200% without loss of page functionality
• No time-based media is present, and moving menus can be paused or stopped
• No flashing items
• Keyboard navigation enabled and elements have a visual focus indicator
• Compliance with color contrast

Technical specifications

Accessibility of ALA relies on the following technologies to work with the particular combination of web browser and any assistive technologies or plugins installed on your computer:

• HTML
• WAI-ARIA
• CSS
• JavaScript

These technologies are relied upon for conformance with the accessibility standards used.

Limitations and alternatives

Despite our best efforts to ensure accessibility of ALA.org, there may be some barriers encountered when using assistive technology. Below is a description of known limitations, and potential solutions. Please contact us if you observe an issue not listed below.

Known limitations for ALA:

1. Third party content: Uploaded documents, such as PDFs, may not be built in an accessible format because we cannot ensure the quality of all contributions in real time. We monitor user content and requests for documents in alternative formats, typically responding within 5 business days. Please use the "report accessibility issues" button below if you encounter an accessibility barrier with use of assistive technology.

Assessment approach

American Library Association assessed the accessibility of ALA by the following approaches:

• A formal quality assurance process throughout the design and development process
• Working with our developer on continued auditing and remediation

Feedback

We welcome feedback to ensure continuous improvement and transparency. If you encounter any accessibility barriers in ALA’s digital space, please reach out to Hpearson@ala.org or call 312.280.5020.

Please include your contact information, the nature of the barrier, the URL page, and any other specific information that would be helpful.

This statement was created using the W3C Accessibility Statement Generator Tool and is assessed annually.

Report accessibility issues