In being graced with an able-body, sight, and no hearing loss, it’s easy to forget about the barriers to access that people with hearing, mobility, or vision impairments are confronted with when navigating and trying to locate information or materials in physical or online libraries, archives, and museums. Whether or not these so-called disabilities personally affect me does not mean that I can ignore them. In fact, I’m not merely obligated to be aware of the accessibility needs of users with disabilities, but I’m also committed to ensuring access to them by making the necessary accommodations; for if only a portion of people can access cultural items in a building or through a website, then I have ultimately failed to provide access.
Having spent several summers as a volunteer at the former Pittsburgh Guild for the Blind and now Blind & Vision Rehabilitation Services of Pittsburgh, I was particularly moved by Dr. Andrew Salamone’s February 2nd talk via Zoom. Listening to him share about the access hurdles he faced as a visually impaired Ph.D. student while conducting research for his dissertation really angered me. It’s one thing to have unintentionally neglected to ensure access to people, as some databases and digital projects have done, but it’s quite another to knowingly refuse to be compliant with federal regulations or worse, to be unwilling to assist a disabled person who requests it. While it may be a harsh description for some library and archival professionals to accept, but to exclude people with vision and hearing impairments from accessing desired information is just another form of discrimination, and we shouldn’t have to wait for a phone call, email, or in-person query for us to do something about it.
At every step of a digital humanities project, it’s vital to be mindful of the modifications that must be made so that blind and deaf visitors can access the text, image, sound, or video recording in the most appropriate format for their needs. Rather than limit the accessibility of these items to potential patrons who are not disabled, digital humanists, archivists, librarians, and curators are responsible for doing all that they can to serve the public and to adjust their collection formats as needed. Although it may not be possible for online archives, museums, and libraries to be 100% accessible due to funding or other restrictions, project directors and teams should make every effort to reach that goal. Even if it’s not expected, they can still work toward a standard of accessibility as an organizational requirement, especially when formulating grant proposals and later implementing approved projects.
Despite not being able to hear Dr. Susannah Ural’s lecture on February 4th about her Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi (CWRGM) digital history project, I have no doubt that she would have done everything in her power to aid Dr. Salamone when he was scanning and collecting correspondence or government records as a doctoral candidate. In addition, I believe that, as Dr. Walters’ colleague at USM, she would also want her students to be cognizant of the impact that accessibility has on digital humanities (DH) through relevant readings, guest speakers, and class assignments on the topic. Given this educational affirmation of accessibility, I would answer “yes” to the question if DH will share my commitment to future access for all. Proponents of this mindset may not be able to guarantee access to everyone in their respective online museums, libraries, and archives, but we can certainly endeavor to apply universal design guidelines to our digital projects so that they are usable to anyone regardless if they have a disability.
In devising a plan for how I’d design an accessible project, I would take into consideration the recommendations of Williams1 who argues for the making of “conscious decisions about accessibility for all” such as collaborating with a blind person to review digital projects with screen-reading software and engaging in a conversation about the process to learn from their expert feedback. Williams also advocates for simplicity in the layout of and in the number of images included on the web pages; however, he does suggest adding alt attributes to each image tag to assist with a user’s comprehension of specific features and in the maneuvering of the website. Moreover, while pointing out plug-ins and add-ons that could be incorporated into a DH project, Williams challenges members of the DH community to develop “free and open-sourced accessibility tools for content management systems” like Anthologize that can convert or translate formats for digital talking books and braille output devices.
Another strategy that digital humanists can employ in their quest to ensure access is to set up volunteer projects for people to help with the transcribing or reformatting of files. Opportunities like this could, in turn, be offered as a way for students to earn internship hours or course credit. Two years ago, I participated in a crowdsourcing project through the North Carolina Veterans Oral History Transcription Project and had the chance to transcribe the interview of World War II veteran Viola Mahoney.
This was the first time that I not only helped make a historical item accessible to researchers but also used the Scripto transcription tool. Since this type of crowdsourced tool has been suggested by Williams for its captioning of audio and video recordings as well as its compatibility with assistive technology, I can see the promise of utilizing Scripto again for the benefit of deaf individuals or those who’d rather search the transcript and not listen to it.
According to Hamraie2, the work of accessibility is “never-finished” and “always troubled,” but yet, it’s still worth the time to continue the fight. And, in doing so, we must take a critical approach in our design of online and physical archives, libraries, and museums so as to notice areas of improvement and move beyond compliance in the architecture of these spaces, the types of materials that are housed, and the formats in which they are accessible. We can do that by repeatedly asking questions about “what counts as access, for whom, and under what conditions?” as Hamraie advised and being better informed of the needs of cross-disability users, the obstacles they encounter, and the targeted interventions that we can carry out to make our DH projects universally accessible.
And, should we ever forget our why, we must remember, as Williams proclaims, that it’s “the right thing to do.”
1 “Chapter 12: Disability, Universal Design, and the Digital Humanities.” https://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/untitled-88c11800-9446-469b-a3be-3fdb36bfbd1e/section/2a59a6fe-3e93-43ae-a42f-1b26d1b4becc. Accessed 1 Feb. 2021.
2 “Mapping Access: Digital Humanities, Disability Justice, and Sociospatial Practice.” http://muse.jhu.edu/article/704333/pdf. Accessed 1 Feb. 2021.
