This Monday, July 26, 2021, marked the 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This landmark legislation literally and figuratively opened the doors for millions of Americans with disabilities to equal access to jobs, education, transportation, and recreation. While we are often reminded of physical access in the form of providing ramps for wheelchairs, accessible seating in theaters, provisions for service animals in stores and public transportation, and interpreters for the hearing impaired, just as important are accessibility initiatives in the online world.
GW has a Digital Accessibility policy and trainings to enable those who provide web services and other online resources to ensure that content is accessible and usable to everyone in the University community. These policies are centered around WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) standards; among them are making color contrast strong enough to be perceived, ensuring that fonts are of sufficient size and readability, providing alt-text for images, and providing for assistive technologies that allow navigation of a website by voice.
Recently the library’s search service, Health Information @ Himmelfarb, began providing a voice search component. Use the microphone icon next to the search bar to enable voice search.
Himmelfarb Library is committed to providing accessible resources keeping POUR (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust) in mind. If you have questions or comments about accessibility and Himmelfarb Library, contact us at himmelfarb@gwu.edu.
