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Accessibility of public library websites in the United States

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Abstract

This study sought to assess how accessible public library websites are to patrons with disabilities, understand the types of accessibility errors that library websites have, and investigate the relationship between library website accessibility and community demographics libraries serve. A total of 120 public library website URLs were evaluated on four different types of pages using Deque’s Axe evaluation tool for testing WCAG 2.1 compliance. Results showed that public library websites overwhelmingly failed to meet the accessibility standards required by law in Sect. 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Color contrast errors were the most common type of error found for each type of page. It was found that there were no significant relationships between community demographics libraries serve and accessibility errors. This study provides up-to-date information on public library website accessibility and looks further than previous studies into how accessibility errors can differ across page types as well as how accessibility may relate to community demographics.

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The author has no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

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  1. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science, Chapel Hill, USA

    Paul Khawaja

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  1. Paul Khawaja
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Correspondence to Paul Khawaja.

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Khawaja, P. Accessibility of public library websites in the United States. Univ Access Inf Soc 22, 1047–1057 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-022-00866-y

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