The majority of the library databases come from three companies, EBSCO, Gale and ProQuest. These database vendors are compliant with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and/or W3C WAI WCAG 2.0. They also provide information about their accessible features.
Please contact us if you are experiencing difficulties with any of our databases.
All EBSCOhost databases provide a text to speech option for HTML Full Text articles. However, many articles are not available in HTML. When you have located an article, click on HTML Full Text and there will be an option to listen. You can also download these audio files in MP3 format.
Newer PDFs in EBSCO are ADA compliant. EBSCO Publishing began providing its scanned PDFs with an Optical Character Reader (OCR) text layer in September 2004. For assistance with older pdfs, contact the reference librarians at library.reference@umb.edu or 617.287.5940.
For more information
Gale Databases (such as Academic OneFile or the New York Times) provide a Listen function for full-text articles. Wherever the Listen icon is present, there is the option to have the document read aloud. The Listen tool also allows you to download the audio file as a MP3.
For more information
ProQuest databases contain many PDFs which are ADA compliant. However, older content was created from scanned images of original text that is not accessible to screen readers. This content is identified throughout ProQuest with the label 'Scanned image PDF.' For assistance with older pdfs, contact Library Reference at 617.287.5940 or library.reference@umb.edu.
The following databases provide policies or statements which express ADA compliance.
Credo Reference provides access to a broad variety of reference sources from dictionaries to encyclopedias covering topics from the arts to the sciences. It has an image collection, maps, customizable data, and audio pronunciation files. You can search the whole collection or a specific subject area.
The Library Accessibility Alliance provides in depth accessibility reports of common library products and databases, and vendor responses when given.
Accessibility Testing Results for many common library products. This site does keyboard navigation testing, in which a resource that fails the keyboard test is unusable with assistive technology. This testing asks: