The BISG Guide: A vital accessibility resource for publishers

I had the pleasure of presenting an overview of the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) Quick Start Guide to Accessible Publishing at the EPUB Accessibility and EDUPUB Summits in Baltimore, MD this past February. The guide is expected to become the go-to accessibility resource for publishers.Officially published in English, it has already been translated into French, German, Spanish, and Italian. A Korean translation is expected soon.

What is accessible publishing?

Accessibility means making content able to be consumed, navigated, and understood by everybody, no matter how they are able to access it. It is often taken to mean making it able to be used by the blind, who might need to use assistive technology like a screen reader or Braille. But it actually means much more than that, making it accessible not only to print-disabled users but the deaf, people who can’t use a touchpad or a keyboard, etc. By implementing high-quality accessible EPUB production, we create a foundation where ebooks and other content become easier for everybody to navigate and consume, providing a 'curb-cut effect' for the digital world..

The good news for most publishers: if you’re already creating EPUB 3s, you’ve already done much of the work.

Properly structured EPUB 3s are inherently accessible, with a few refinements like image descriptions and some metadata being all many typical books need. (Technical and media content need other refinements, of course.)

Ideally, people needing accessible content should be able to buy the same version of a publication that everybody else does. EPUB 3 makes this possible.

Creating a baseline recommendation for accessibility

The Accessibility Summit drew participants from around the world to contribute to the development of a baseline recommendation for accessibility, a subject that suffers from conflicting recommendations and widespread confusion among publishers. It’s important for people to understand that it is not only possible, but practical, to build accessibility into standard publishing workflows, and that making content accessible makes it much better for all users. Another priority of the Summit was to make progress toward the development of guidelines for making EPUBs more accessible, enabling the development of a Certification Program for EPUB that will recognize publications and systems that meet those guidelines.

Bill Kasdorf is a co-editor of the BISG Quick Start Guide to Accessible Publishing and chair of the BISG Content Structure Committee.