For accessibility questions and requests, submit a ticket to the APA Support team, and for topic, select "Database access & support" from their dropdown menu.
The ACM Digital Library platform is keyboard navigable and compatible with screenreaders. Some images have descriptive alt text, but it is not clear whether all images in the articles contained in the database have alt text. Text content can be copied and pasted into a text-to-speech tool.
For accessibility questions and requests, contact dl-team@hq.acm.org.
I have not been able to find accessibility information on the Conference Board website. The tech support email is customer.service@tcb.org.
The EBSCOhost platform is accessible to screenreaders and keyboard navigation. Article content is available in PDFs, many of which are accessible to screenreaders; however, articles are also available in HTML full-text, which is accessible to screenreaders and has a built-in text to speech function as well. The MP3 audio file of this text-to-speech version is downloadable. Meaningful images have descriptive alt text. Videos and audiobooks have transcripts. Ebooks support zoom to 200% and are downloadable in accessible EPUB format.
For accessibility questions and requests, contact accessibility@ebsco.com and they will reply within two business days.
The Elsevier platforms are screenreader compatible and keyboard navigable. Zoom up to 400% is supported. Content is available as HTML or downloadable PDF, with math equations represented in MathML. All graphical elements and images have meaningful text equivalents and alt text. The only video content is tutorials, and they are captioned and also available in HTML text format. Elsevier provides some of its ebooks in EPUB format; the rest are in PDF. Content may be requested in Word format for use with Microsoft Speak or ReadAloud options.
For accessibility questions and requests, contact accessibility@elsevier.com.
The Films On Demand platform is screenreader compatible and largely keyboard navigable. Here are the exceptions:
Films On Demand videos have closed captions and searchable, timestamped transcripts, but only some popular videos have audio description tracks.
For accessibility questions or requests, contact video.support@infobase.com.
If you have trouble using a screenreader on one of their PDFs, contact support@jstor.org.
From their site:
"We have made every effort to ensure that our image-based PDF files are accessible and can be read with screen readers such as JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver. These files are tagged at a high level using an automated process. While this method is not exact, it significantly increases the accessibility of files as compared to an untagged version. We are happy to provide files in either PDF or Word (.docx) format upon request.
In the event that the PDF tagging described is not sufficient for your use, we can perform manual tagging for you. We are also happy to reformat PDFs that are unreadable via screen reader."
SEIZURE WARNING: ArtSTOR contains some videos that flash at a frequency that can cause seizures in certain individuals. They ask that if you have concerns about that, you contact support@artstor.org before viewing any videos, and for any other accessibility issue.
ArtSTOR as a platform complies with common web accessibility guidelines. It also has powerful zoom functionality. However, the image descriptions available to people using screenreaders come from the publisher, not ArtSTOR itself. Because of this, some images have inadequate or no descriptions.
The Gale platform is keyboard navigable and screenreader compatible. Article content is available in HTML format, which can be enlarged or used with the built-in ReadSpeaker text to speech tool. Historical archive documents have been OCRed.
For accessibility questions and requests, contact Accessibility.Gale@cengage.com.
HeinOnline states that it is WCAG compliant and compatible with all major screenreaders. However, not all of its video content (including tutorial videos) contain captions or audio descriptions. Scanned documents have been OCRed, but do not support zooming. To access the OCR content, switch to "Section 508 Compliant Mode."
For accessibility questions and requests, email holsupport@wshein.com.
LearnTechLib's platform is keyboard navigable and screenreader compatible. Article content and abstracts are keyboard navigable and screenreader compatible.
LearnTechLib also has a small collection of videos, which are hosted on YouTube. Some have machine generated captions and some do not have any.
For accessibility questions and requests, contact tech@learntechlib.org.
LexisNexis states that its databases are WCAG compliant but does not go into detail.
For accessibility questions and requests, contact accessibility@lexisnexis.com.
Proquest article databases:
Proquest news databases:
Other Proquest databases:
Proquest's platform is meant to be completely accessible with a screenreader and keyboard navigation. They also support zoom up to 400%. Image descriptions and headings in Proquest content are from the publisher, not Proquest, so sometimes they are inadequate or missing. While not all Proquest PDFs are fully accessible, they have stated a commitment to on demand readable text versions of problematic documents. To obtain a readable version follow these instructions from Proquest:
"Where possible, we have provided a way for you to access the textual elements of these pages through an on-demand service. To find that service, tab through the page until you find the message starting with “Generate a text-only version of this document…” This message is located directly after the various saving options (cite, email, print, etc.)"
ProQuest's Alexander Street Video platform is accessible to screenreaders and keyboard navigation, and supports zoom up to 400%. 95% of their videos are close captioned and have searchable transcripts - the exceptions are videos with no spoken content, and videos in a language other than English. Most of their videos do not have audio description tracks. They also have some issues with text being embeded in an image with no accessible alternative.
To resolve an accessibility issue with Alexander Street Video, submit a case to Proquest Technical Support.
The Ebook Central platform is accessible via screenreader and keyboard navigation. The platform does not have built-in text to speech functionality, but does work with text to speech browser extensions. It allows browser extensions to adjust color contrast and there is a Profile setting to change the font to OpenDyslexic. Ebook Central supports zoom up to 300%. The ebooks themselves are structured and tagged for the convenience of screenreader users - switch to Text Only Mode. Downloaded books and chapters can be accessed using Adobe Reader's text to speech mode. Images and headers in ebooks have alt text supplied by the publisher, not by Ebook Central, and in some cases it is inadequate or missing.
To resolve an accessibility issue with Ebook Central, submit a case to Proquest Technical Support.
The Sage platform is keyboard navigable and screenreader compatible. Some of the video content is hosted through Youtube and may not have closed captions or audio description tracks. Some but not all podcast content has transcripts available. Most content is OCRed and has descriptive alt text for images, but older content may not. PDF content is not tagged. Math in downloaded PDFs is rendered as images, but math in EPUB format is rendered in MathML.
For accessibility questions, contact online.accessibility@sagepub.com. For alternative format requests, contact accessrequest@sagepub.com
For accessibility questions and requests, submit a ticket with Springer support.
Taylor & Francis platform and content are keyboard navigable and screenreader compatible. In addition, zoom is supported to 200%, and there is a built-in text to speech tool for articles. Most articles are available in both PDF and HTML formats. Newer PDFs are OCRed, but very old PDFs may not be. Newer articles with math content use MathML, which is compatible with screenreaders and text to speech.
For accessibility questions and requests, contact the Academic VIP Requests Team.
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