Publisher wins award for making resources accessible to disabled people

Elsevier, publisher of science and health information, was announced as the winner of the award, presented at the London Bookfair on Wednesday 21 April 2010, while publishers Palgrave Macmillan and Sage were both highly commended.

Making e-books more accessible, training technical and production teams in disability issues and streamlining the enquiries process are all ways that publishers are moving to support disabled people.

Alistair McNaught, Jisc TechDis senior adviser who thought up the awards, said: “Elsevier were selected from a really strong field of candidates. Judges were impressed with Elsevier’s response rates to customer enquiries and their embedded accessibility strategy. Accessibility is a cross-management responsibility at Elsevier and evidently part of the organisational culture.

“Putting the spotlight on accessibility benefits everyone and now, thanks to the awards, we’ve created a kind of community of practice where publishers are learning from each other.”

"Thanks to the awards, we’ve created a kind of community of practice where publishers are learning from each other.”

Alistair McNaught, Jisc TechDis

Andrea Kravetz, vice president of user centred design for Elsevier, said: “We are very happy to receive this award, as it recognises the emphasis we put on accessibility of online products for our end users. Elsevier was also recognised for the many initiatives created for internal use. Our team of experts has worked for years behind the scenes to educate the business about accessibility.”

The awards were presented by Mark Bide, executive director at EDItEUR, trade standards body for book and serials supply chains. They were sponsored by Dolphin and Iansyst Ltd, organisations that promote independence amongst disabled people.

Librarians are now being asked to nominate publishers for a new award to highlight those organisations that by responding professionally to accessibility requests bring significant benefits to disabled learners.

Nominate a publisher for a Library Service award by 3 September 2010