Presentations from colleagues working on digital publishing projects and thinking about issues of accessibility, access, and sustainability.

Dr. Lara Yeager Crasselt, Curator, and Caroline Van Cauwenberge, Curatorial Associate and Digital Content Coordinator, The Leiden Collection, address issues of accessibility and sustainability in The Leiden Collection Catalogue, the online scholarly catalogue of this significant private collection of seventeenth-century Dutch art. Launched in 2017, the catalogue features scholarly entries, essays, and artist biographies, as well as technical images, videos, and exhibition content. As a digital publication, the catalogue makes a collection without an onsite presence broadly accessible to scholars and the general public, while also serving as a dynamic platform that reflects current scholarship and technological advancements in the field. Yeager Crasselt and Van Cauwenberge explore various challenges, including conceptual and practical issues, managing collection and staff responsibilities, and operating outside of a traditional institutional framework.

Jon McGlone, Front End Developer, UI Designer, and Accessibility Specialist, Michigan Publishing, and Jillian Downey, Director of Publishing Production, University of Michigan Press, offer tips on creating born-digital publications. In 2015, the University of Michigan Press began experimenting with techniques to improve the accessibility of their ebooks for readers with print disabilities. Five years into their program, they’ve learned a lot about web and ebook accessibility, but most importantly that the best-made digital books are also the most accessible books. McGlone and Downey distill their experiences with authors, editors, and production staff into best practices for making born-accessible digital publications, covering topics like production workflows, describing images, and techniques for making the many components of a digital publication accessible.