Faculty Guide to Truxal Library

The library is eager to help faculty in making their courses more accessible! This page addresses:

• How to use library materials in your course
• Considerations for remediating inaccessible materials
• A source for accessible videos

Please contact us with any other questions or issues.

While conformance with accessibility standards is increasing overall, usability of different databases and even of content inside the same database can vary a lot. Here are some strategies for finding and using accessible course content.

Link directly to database

Use the database's "permalink" or "share" option to direct students to the content in the database, rather than saving a copy and uploading to your course.

• There may be an HTML format in addition to a PDF. The HTML version is more likely to be accessible, and linking to the item record allows the student to choose the version that best meets their needs.
• Most databases have useful accessibility information linked somewhere within the site, so direct linking gives the student the chance to find that info.
• Linking also complies with copyright and license terms, and encourages students to discover further resources on their own.

Permalinks are available for virtually all database items, but finding them and ensuring they're correctly formatted (so that off-campus users can access materials) can be tricky. Feel free to contact library staff for helping finding direct links.

Check other databases (or let us!)

There is overlap among our databases! An item that's inaccessibly-formatted in one database may be fine in another. You can check for holdings using the periodical search on our databases page or visit the websites of open-access journals. However, please feel free to reach out to library staff for assistance. (For instance, even if a journal only appears in one database, the specific article may have appeared in an accessible e-book – let us track that down for you!)

Suggest a purchase

If we don't have an item in our collection or lack the item in an accessible electronic format, contact the library director or use the collection suggestion form. There are a number of variables that affect our ability to obtain electronic materials, so we cannot guarantee all titles will be added, but please reach out. Note: due to publisher restrictions, we typically cannot purchase e-textbooks.

Use interlibrary loan

To meet the need of a single borrower, interlibrary loan (ILL) may be fastest option. Students and employees may access the ILL request form with a MyAACC login; articles or book chapters are delivered electronically for the exclusive use of the recipient (so cannot be shared with a whole class). The requester should specify that an accessible format is needed.

Role of copyright

Your options for editing third-party content may depend on its copyright status:

• Materials in the public domain can be modified and shared as needed.
• For materials with open licenses (like Creative Commons), review the license for permitted uses. You may also be able to contact the rightsholder for additional permissions if needed.
  • See our Research Guide to Open Educational Resources (OER) for help finding modifiable materials.
• Copyrighted materials may be modified to meet the needs of students with disabilities under the Chafee Amendment (external link opens new window), but you may not be able to share them with others. Typically, DSS is involved in these situations to ensure a student has access to required materials.

Note. You have more latitude to meet the needs of a specific student with a disability. Do not assume you can legally share the same reworked document with your whole class.

Vendor remediation

The optimal solution when copyrighted content isn't accessible is remediation by the vendor or rightsholder. Some database vendors (as well as other publishers) offer a method for requesting that specific items be provided in an accessible format. See for instance:

Vendors may or may not update the content where it lives in the database. If the file is provided to you directly, make sure to receive written permission to share and reuse it.