[Athen] [EXTERNAL] Re: article advocating for PDFs in College & Research Libraries News

[kerscher at montana.com]

Hello,

 

Many scholarly journalsare written in the XML vocabulary called "Journal
Article Tag Suite" (JATS). This is a rich vocabulary the journal artless are
authored in. They are then transformed into normally HTML or PDF for
consumption. There is an accessibility working group  for JATS that has just
been started.Some of the issues they are dealing with is making sure the
articles have proper markup for tables and alt text being provided.

 

There is huge potential to make scholarly publications accessible through
transformations into HTML that has full accessibility markup.

 

Best

George

 

 

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf
Of Alexis Delevett
Sent: Friday, September 9, 2022 2:43 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL] Re: article advocating for PDFs in College &
Research Libraries News

 

Thanks, that's great news about articles generally being tagged.

 

Of course, your experience may be different also for textbooks, but I more
often than not find that textbooks in PDF are not tagged and so now I'm
wondering why textbooks are treated differently than journal articles?

  _____  

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu
<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> > on behalf of Susan
Kelmer <Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu <mailto:Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu> >
Sent: Friday, September 9, 2022 1:11 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu
<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu> >
Subject: Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL] Re: article advocating for PDFs in College &
Research Libraries News 

 

I doubt many of the publisher-produced PDFs are not accessible/tagged.
Every article I run into on a library database produced by a publisher is
well-formatted and perfectly tagged.

 

The author specifically points to librarians creating documents using
Microsoft word, so I'm assuming these are in-house documents.  You don't
create a PDF in Adobe PDF, you create it somewhere else and export it to
PDF, with tags and etc. This is why I feel like the author doesn't really
understand what he is talking about.  Even a basically formatted Word file
with the use of styles/headings exports as a nice PDF once it is done, and
it takes very little time to do that.

 

 

Susan Kelmer 

Alternate Format Production Program Manager

Disability Services

Health and Wellness Services

T 303 735 4836

 
<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.colora
do.edu%2Fdisabilityservices&data=05%7C01%7Calexis_delevett%40cuesta.edu%7C6b
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637983511215809830%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luM
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3cS6PQpU8ans60GC7p6O1p8%3D&reserved=0> www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices 

 

 



 

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From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu
<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> > On Behalf Of Alexis
Delevett
Sent: Friday, September 9, 2022 1:51 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu
<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu> >
Subject: Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL] Re: article advocating for PDFs in College &
Research Libraries News

 

Say we are stuck with PDF as the de facto storage format, why are Libraries
still accepting untagged PDFs from publishers? Aren't they then on the hook
for providing inaccessible digital content?

 

  _____  

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu
<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> > on behalf of Susan
Kelmer <Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu <mailto:Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu> >
Sent: Friday, September 9, 2022 12:36 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu
<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu> >
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [Athen] article advocating for PDFs in College &
Research Libraries News 

 

Well, there is some glaring misinformation in there, and definitely too
short a piece to be truly useful.

 

Remediating a PDF is difficult and time-consuming, while creating a good
quality accessible WORD document is easy and only takes a few steps. That
good quality Word file, which only took a few minutes to create properly,
can then be output to multiple formats, including tagged PDF and HTML.

 

I am not sure the author really understands what he is talking about.  

 

 

Susan Kelmer 

Alternate Format Production Program Manager

Disability Services

Health and Wellness Services

T 303 735 4836

 
<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.colora
do.edu%2Fdisabilityservices&data=05%7C01%7Calexis_delevett%40cuesta.edu%7C6b
fb0e613e534930db0308da929f8c4e%7Cdd06762afacb4cd7a4a5cc0ba50bcc30%7C0%7C0%7C
637983511215809830%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luM
zIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=FG1ou3qXdzdfsC7EbR2G
3cS6PQpU8ans60GC7p6O1p8%3D&reserved=0> www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices 

 

 



 

Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this message
cannot be guaranteed. If you've received this email in error please notify
the sender immediately and delete this message. 

 

 

 

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu
<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> > On Behalf Of Adina
Mulliken
Sent: Friday, September 9, 2022 12:35 PM
To: athen-list at u.washington.edu <mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu> 
Subject: [Athen] article advocating for PDFs in College & Research Libraries
News

 

Sorry, this article might not be the best thing to share on a Friday
afternoon, but here it is.   I'm not agreeing with the article.  

 

Chee, M., & Weaver, K. (2022). The great PDF debate: Accessible or
impossible?. College & Research Libraries News, 83(8), 363. doi:
<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2
F10.5860%2Fcrln.83.8.363&data=05%7C01%7Calexis_delevett%40cuesta.edu%7C6bfb0
e613e534930db0308da929f8c4e%7Cdd06762afacb4cd7a4a5cc0ba50bcc30%7C0%7C0%7C637
983511215809830%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIi
LCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=SEEg4kr9vpXxEfv7WNPkjUN
%2BMVld3%2FiWgHafNedi5wQ%3D&reserved=0>
https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.83.8.363


At least the article cites a couple of articles that advocate a different
view.

 

Adina

 

Adina Mulliken

Associate Professor, Librarian Silberman Social Work and Urban Public Health
Library

Hunter College, City University of New York

2180 3rd Ave. New York, NY

Phone 212-396-7665

Pronouns she/her

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