Home University of Edinburgh Library Essentials
September 23, 2023
Website accessibility statement in line with Public Sector Body (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018
Library Blogs (https://libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/) is a website hosted by Library and University Collections on behalf of the University of Edinburgh. It holds blog entries from the Library and University collections and is a front-facing public website.
We want as many people as possible to be able to use Library Blogs. For example, that means you should be able to:
We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.
AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability. This is an external site with suggestions to make your computer more accessible:
AbilityNet – My Computer My Way
With a few simple steps you can customise the appearance of our website using your browser settings to make it easier to read and navigate:
Additional information on how to customise our website appearance
If you are a member of University staff or a student, you can use the free SensusAccess accessible document conversion service:
We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:
If you need information on this website in a different format, including accessible PDF, large print, audio recording or braille please contact the Information Services Helpline:
We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days.
We are always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page, or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact:
We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) directly:
Contact details for the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS)
The government has produced information on how to report accessibility issues:
Reporting an accessibility problem on a public sector website
contactSCOTLAND-BSL runs a service for British Sign Language users and all of Scotland’s public bodies using video relay. This enables sign language users to contact public bodies and vice versa. The service operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
contactSCOTLAND-BSL service details
The University of Edinburgh is committed to making its websites and applications accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.
The full guidelines are available at:
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA standard
Noncompliance with the accessibility regulations
The following items to not comply with the WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria:
Unless specified otherwise a complete solution or significant improvement will be in place by June 2021 for the issues within our control.
We are not currently claiming that any accessibility problems would be a disproportionate burden to fix.
Many of our older PDFs are not fully accessible, for example, an article on the myth of Robert Burns, and they may not be easy to view using a screen reader. The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.
Our site includes reproductions of items in heritage collections that cannot be made fully accessible, because doing so would either damage the item or it is not possible to extract the text from the manuscripts. For example, an article on the reproduction of heritage collections itself would be exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.
We will continue to work to address these issues and deliver a solution or suitable workaround. Where issues are under our control we will work to rectify to correct issues. We plan to resolve the issues that are within our control by June 2021.
We will carry out further accessibility testing if significant changes are made to the user interface or if a service user raises an issue.
While we are in the process of resolving these accessibility issues, or where we are unable to, we will ensure reasonable adjustments are in place to make sure no user is disadvantaged.
This statement was prepared on 25th May 2020. It was last reviewed on 9th September 2020
This website was tested by the University of Edinburgh’s Disability Information Officer on a PC using Internet Explorer (11.0.9600.19236) browser and also using the automated Webaim WAVE tool. Internet Explorer was chosen as the browser due to it being the most commonly used browser by disabled people as shown in the government survey: Government Assistive Technology Browser Survey. We tested the home page and a selection of pages throughout the site to ensure all the main features of the website were tested.
We tested: