E-accessible Astronomy Resources

TL;DR

This paper discusses the importance of making astronomy online resources accessible to physically challenged users, highlighting current standards and the lack of compliance among astronomy databases, and proposing solutions.

Contribution

It identifies the gap in accessibility compliance among astronomy resources and discusses potential solutions to improve inclusivity.

Findings

Some vendors are making products compliant with accessibility standards.

Most astronomy databases are not yet compliant with accessibility standards.

The paper proposes solutions to address accessibility challenges.

Abstract

Making online resources more accessible to physically challenged library users is a topic deserving informed attention from astronomy librarians. Recommendations like WCAG 2.0 standards and section 508, in the United States, have proven valuable, and some vendors are already making their products compliant with them. But what about the wide variety of databases and other resources produced by astronomy information professionals themselves? Few, if any, of these are currently compliant with accessibility standards. Here we discuss some solutions to these accessibility challenges.