© 2017 Tizra Inc. 9 Catalpa Rd., Providence, RI 02906 • 401 400-2989 www.tizra.com ACCESSIBILITY: LEADING BY EXAMPLE One of the guiding principles of ARL is the belief that open and equitable access to information is a fundamental tenet of society. ARL recently formed a taskforce to provide guidelines and resources to libraries on how to make online materials more accessible to those with print disabilities including individuals with visual, physical, perceptual, developmental, cognitive or learning disabilities that render print inaccessible. As part of this initiative, ARL also retained the services of a specialized consulting firm to take a look at the accessibility of its own online content, including its main website and online publications to identify what changes needed to be made. ARL is strongly committed to providing access to its own web content to people with print disabilities and is currently working to comply with the requirements of W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Level AA (WCAG 2.0 AA). The ability to support ARL’s accessibility initiatives was another key factor in the decision to work with Tizra. Tizra has provided new web templates coded to comply with the accessibility recommendations of ARL’s consultants, and Tizra continues to add new features to facilitate delivery of the accessibility tagging in ARL’s PDFs. ARL has also taken additional steps to improve screen reader interpretation including adding alt text to images, captioning videos, using style settings to define text types, assigning languages and completing metadata. “In today’s machine-driven world, it doesn’t just matter how content looks, the way it did in the print world, it matters how it works,” stated George, commenting on the need for accessibility. “With Tizra, it doesn’t just look great, it also works great.” MEASURING RESULTS After successfully going into online-only production with the RLI newsletter at the end of 2011, ARL began offering its flagship statistics, salary survey, and SPEC Kit publications online through Tizra. ARL members now receive the statistics and salary survey online only, with an additional fee charged for print copies. SPEC Kit subscribers were offered the options of print only, digital only, or both. Since this push to move members and subscribers online, ARL has seen a significant uptick in online renewals.