photo by Chuttersnap on Unsplash

The Internet has opened up the opportunity for creators to reach worldwide audiences. Authors can transmit digital creations in a matter of seconds by simply uploading an article or ebook, sharing a video, or posting a blog entry. But authors can reach an even wider audience if their digital creations are accessible to those with disabilities. Notwithstanding significant strides made toward making digital content more accessible over the past decade, the prevalence of inaccessible digital content continues to be problematic.

Last fall, Authors Alliance, the Silicon Flatirons Center, and the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology convened a group of content creators, technologists, attorneys, academics, and advocates to discuss the role of creators in making digital works more widely accessible to people with disabilities.

The roundtable discussion focused on the unique role authors, educators, and libraries play in making digital works accessible; the benefits, obligations, and barriers around accessibility; the availability of authoring tools that facilitate accessibility; and the gaps for digital accessibility that technology and policy might fill.

That conversation led to the creation of the report, Authorship and Accessibility in the Digital Age, which distills these topics into a concise summary of the current landscape, as well as recommendations for further action. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Silicon Flatirons Center and the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology in making the roundtable and the report possible. We would also like to thank Angel Antkers, Susan Miller, and Sophia Galleher, student attorneys in the Colorado Law Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law and Policy Clinic, for their role in authoring this report; and Rob Haverty at Adobe Document Cloud for his assistance in creating an accessible pdf.

The full report can be downloaded here.