[Athen] Review a document?

[Kevin Andrews via athen-list]

Hi Sagan,


Thanks for reaching out and for the care you're clearly putting into
improving accessibility in your library archives. It’s heartening to see
someone thinking not just about compliance, but about actual usability and
experience for blind readers.


That said, I do want to gently flag that asking blind screen reader users
to review multiple documents and provide UX feedback, without compensation,
can feel like being asked to donate our expertise and lived experience.
This is valuable labor, and when done well, it’s not just “feedback,” it’s
user testing, consulting, and accessibility evaluation work.


If your institution is able to allocate funding or formalize this into a
paid opportunity (or even a structured pilot with clear parameters), I
imagine you'd get more consistent, thorough feedback, and it would set a
strong precedent around valuing access labor.


Totally understand if you’re early in the process or navigating
constraints, and I appreciate you opening the door. Just wanted to be
candid about how this sort of request might land.


Wishing you all the best with the remediation work—this kind of deep
accessibility work is sorely needed.

On Wed, Jul 23, 2025 at 2:38 PM Wallace, Sagan via athen-list <
athen-list at u.washington.edu> wrote:


> Hello all,

>

> This is a big ask, so I'm sending this out to a few lists. Would anyone

> who is an experienced screen reader be willing to review one of the

> documents linked below, and give feedback on how effectively they were

> remediated? If you were a visually-impaired researcher using our archives

> and downloaded this material, would you be satisfied? Frustrated?

>

> Background: I am working on remediating our library archives for screen

> reader accessibility. These are theses and dissertations, most of which are

> STEM-heavy. All of our documents are PDF scans and we are converting them

> to HTML or EPUB. I am finding it's hard to make some remediation decisions

> because we are remediating to have these available for any researcher who

> encounters them, rather than being able to tailor them to an individual

> reader's needs. I'm confident in our ability to do a basic correction, but

> I want these documents to be actually pleasant for our future reader to

> use. Hopefully I'll be able to conduct an actual UX test with our patrons,

> but until then I'd love some general feedback.

>

> Each folder has the original PDF, and our output file:

>

>

>    - Example of a math-heavy PDF converted to HTML

>    <https://oregonstate.box.com/s/ys5o4xtdmwlwkkejej9rvwyi06he1h66>

>    - Math was made using the Word equation editor. I'm particularly

>       curious how equation 104 on page 77 is, since that was made using MathPix.

>       - Document with lots of footnotes

>    <https://oregonstate.box.com/s/67packz54fb96vnxwgp3h07lon1fdxck>,

>    converted to EPUB

>    - In particular, how is the navigation back and forth between the end

>       notes and the main text?

>       - PDF of a poetry book

>    <https://oregonstate.box.com/s/6u0po6y3qmtcyc4co3zjtxobvq1cjgle>,

>    converted to EPUB

>    - I haven't been able to figure out how to maintain the formatting and

>       page breaks, but I don't think keeping it as PDF is the answer.

>       - Scan of a typewritten document from 1874

>    <https://oregonstate.box.com/s/2uhr3tul3p9ibxnhz1xflsga6gqokzlm>,

>    converted to EPUB

>    - In this one I'm trying to balance maintaining the original

>       formatting, while making the difficult-to-read text audible. We have a lot

>       of documents written in cursive that will need to be corrected.

>

>

> Thank you for any support, and I hope you have a wonderful week!

>

> Best,

>

> Sagan Wallace

> *they/them*

> Library Accessibility Manager

> Oregon State University Libraries & Press

>

>

> _______________________________________________

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>



-- 
Best Regards,
Kevin Andrews
Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Coordinator
University Information Services
Georgetown University
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