Library Accessibility Services

ACE is a shared collection of accessible library materials available to students with print disabilities across Ontario universities.

If you're registered with LAS, you can use your ACE token to log in and download materials in accessible formats, such as PDF, ePub, and DAISY.

How to Use ACE:

• Search for a title in the library catalogue.

• Click “Request Alternate Format for Print Disabled Users.”

• Enter your ACE token.

• The form will auto-fill with the book info, just add your name, email, reason, and preferred format.

• Once processed, you'll get a link to download the file.

You can also search the ACE repository directly to see what’s already available.

Note: ACE does not support textbook requests—LAS will help you access those through other services.

Every new request helps expand the collection for students across Ontario!

HathiTrust is one of the largest and most valuable digital libraries available to you. It contains over 18 million digitized titles from academic and research institutions worldwide, in more than 400 languages, including some extinct ones, and dates back to the 3rd and 4th centuries.

It covers a full range of subject areas, aligned with Library of Congress subject headings, making it especially useful for humanities, social sciences, and historical research. Many books are available in full text and can be read online or downloaded, depending on copyright status.

How to Use HathiTrust:

• Visit hathitrust.org

• Click “Log in” and select McMaster University

• Search for titles using keywords, authors, or subjects

• Check for “Full View” access (freely available books)

• If a title is restricted or you need a different format, contact LAS—we can request the file and convert it for you if needed

HathiTrust is an excellent resource for finding supplemental readings, historical materials, and academic works that may not be available elsewhere. If you're looking for something niche or older, this is one of the best places to start.

And remember—if it’s not already in an accessible format, LAS can help!

The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library that provides free access to millions of digitized resources, including books, academic texts, multimedia, websites, and more. It was founded in 1996 with the mission of preserving universal access to all knowledge, and has since grown into one of the world’s largest open digital libraries.

For students with print disabilities, the Internet Archive’s book collection is especially useful. It includes nearly 5 million titles that can be downloaded or borrowed in accessible formats such as ePub, DAISY, PDF, and plain text.

What You’ll Find:

• Academic and historical texts

• Older editions of textbooks (especially pre-2015)

• Literature, biographies, and general nonfiction

• Public domain works and rare scans

• Some scanned Canadian content

How to Use Internet Archive:

• Go to archive.org

• Create a free account to borrow or download books

• Send us the account information - your userID

• We will add you to the list of authorized users

• Once added, search for your title and check available formats & download

Note: Borrowed books are temporarily “checked out” to you and cannot be downloaded, but can be read using the online reader or apps like EasyReader or Voice Dream.

Why Use Internet Archive?

• Great for supplementary readings, research, and historical texts

• Helpful when textbooks are out of print or not available through standard platforms

• Expands your access beyond what’s available in the campus library

• Includes millions of free or loaned books not available elsewhere

The Internet Archive is an invaluable option, especially if you're exploring older texts, niche topics, or need something quickly in an accessible format.

The Centre for Equitable Library Access (CELA) is a national non-profit service that provides people with print disabilities access to a broad range of reading materials in accessible formats. Canadian public libraries established CELA to ensure equitable access to reading, learning, and literacy for individuals with vision loss, learning disabilities, or physical disabilities that prevent them from accessing traditional print materials.

CELA serves readers of all ages and reading levels, offering everything from bestselling novels and magazines to newspapers, reference books, and children’s literature.

What’s in the CELA Collection?

• Books: Fiction, non-fiction, textbooks (limited), and children’s books

• Magazines: Current issues of popular Canadian and international titles

• Newspapers: Daily publications like The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, and others

• Formats: DAISY audio, e-text, eBraille, MP3, and physical CDs (delivered by mail if needed)

• Languages: Primarily English and French, with some multilingual content

How to Access CELA as a McMaster Student:

• Visit the Hamilton Public Library (HPL) website to get an HPL card (free for McMaster students)

• Visit the Hamilton Public Library (HPL) CELA webpage to self-register for a CELA membership

• Visit CELA to search and download books or receive them by mail in your preferred format

Once you sign up, your CELA account is permanent.

If you need an accessible version of something that isn't already in our collection, please complete the Request Accessible Copy form. Library Accessibility Services (LAS) will do its best to locate or create an accessible version for you as quickly as possible. 

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To help ensure students receive their textbooks on time, instructors can:

• submit textbook adoptions to The Campus Store as soon as possible.
  • It can take 4 - 6 weeks to produce a textbook.  If we can obtain the book quickly, the student will be able to keep up with the class.
• post the course outline, with chapters, as soon as possible.
  • We use the course outline to prioritize the order in which we work on transcription. 
• submit tests and exams as soon as possible.
  • We work with the test and exams section of SAS in the production of braille tests.  To ensure the highest quality exams, please submit them to SAS by the due date given.
• use SensusAccess to convert documents before posting them to your website or Avenue.
  • SensusAccess converts a variety of documents into a variety of accessible versions of themselves. 
  • SensusAccess does an amazing job with conversion.  While it is not perfect, it's close and will work for the majority of students.
  • visit SensusAccess to give it a try.

SensusAccess is an amazing tool to create alternate formats.  It can be added to your A2L course to allow students to create their own alternate formats.  Please see the video below to add this tool to your course.

SensusAccess for A2L (Redirects to YouTube)

Infographics combine the requirements of both an image alt-text and a transcript.

Writing good alt-text:

1. Keep it short – ideally, you want to keep your alt-text to one or two sentences describing the non-textual components of the image. Explain the context of the image, why it was chosen for your project, what is essential about this infographic, and only the important points.
2. Use plain text; do not use bolding, italics, or font settings other than those available in the styles panel for navigation.
3. Ensure the alt-text is a textual representative of the image.  If you were only to receive the alt-text, would you have the same information as someone with the image?

Things to avoid:

1. Include identity (Ethnicity, gender, age or ability) when it is contextually relevant.
2. Do not use the file name or the image caption for alt-text.
3. Avoid assumptions; only describe what you see.

Once you have created the alt-text for the image, you must create a transcript of the infographic contents.  This can be done in a variety of ways:

• The text can be included in the document below the infographic.
• The text can be included as a linked document.

Important considerations:

• The resultant document must include all the text from the infographic, including any reading order or structure.
• Including a typical heading structure in either transcript will allow for navigation through the document. 

The primary goal of alt-text is to give a textual description of the image, including the context of why it is there. WebAIM’s Alternative Text page is an excellent resource for a better explanation of this.  

 One thing to also think about when writing alt-text is the role of gender, race, and disability in the descriptions.  Visually impaired persons would only have access to this information with this description; however, there are other considerations when writing these descriptions.  

Several excellent resources have been written on this topic, but two stand out:

 The first resource, the Accessible Images Guide, stands out due to its intersectional approach. It's authored by individuals with lived experience who are part of Queerly Represent Me, an organization that was specifically founded to enhance diversity in the gaming industry.  

The second is an alt-text information page on Race, Gender, and Physical Descriptions co-written by several London-based universities, titled Make Things Accessible.  It is well-written and contains excellent resources.  

Things to keep in mind when writing alt-text:

• Keep it short, no more than 1 – 2 sentences, unless it is an Infographic
• Consider the context: why did you add the image to your presentation or paper?
• Don’t repeat the image caption or text that appears around it
• Don’t include ‘image of’, or ‘picture of’ in the text, but
• Do include information about the source of the image, for example, if it is a painting, a logo, a cartoon, or an illustration.

Closed Captions

Read more about Library Captioning Resources, which will help you determine which path to submit your caption request.

Captioning translates the audio part of a video into captions that appear at the bottom of the screen. The ‘closed’ part means that the text is hidden until it is selected.

Open captions are captions that are burned into the video so they cannot be turned off.  McMaster provides open captions as part of its captioning service.

AODA Requirement:

• Any video added to a McMaster website AFTER 2014 or being used in a class, presentation, public talk, or online course MUST be properly closed-captioned - either as part of the production process or retroactively

McMaster Captioning Standard:

• Where possible, please caption as indicated below: 

Questions / help / guidance - all available at captioning@mcmaster.ca

Described Video is the narration of the visual elements of an audio-visual program.  This narration allows the listener to paint a mental picture of the setting.  Videos that have been described will have a D with two semi-circles radiating from the round side of the D.  This is the universal symbol for Described Video.  
While Described Video is the process of adding narration after the material has been written, Integrated Described Video (IDV) includes the DV process in the scriptwriting process. It is part of the dialogue rather than narrated over the script.  For more information, please see the links in the menu on the right.

Described Video is useful in many ways:
•    for those with a visual impairment 
•    as auditory learning aids
•    for language development
•    as audiobooks
•    for those on the autism spectrum

Described Video can be requested through the Described Video and Captioning Request Tool for students as part of an accommodation.
 

Born Digital

One thing to think about when creating a textbook or publishing research is publishing your work in an accessible digital format.  Most researchers are familiar with creating digital content, and with a few minor changes, digital content can also be accessible.  There are many benefits to creating accessible digital content, and the main advantage of being accessible for all.  In addition to improving access for those with disabilities, improving the accessibility of the material benefits those without disabilities, and it improves SEO (search engine optimization).  For more information on how to make those changes, please visit:

The Daisy Accessible Publishing Knowledge Base

Improving the Accessibility of Your Mainstream Digital Content

Book Net Canada: Producing Born Accessible Books

Creating Accessible ePubs

Accessible Information in Education

Under the Information and Communications Standards, producers of educational materials must make textbooks and any other educational or training materials available in accessible formats by January 1st, 2020. For instance, accessibly produced materials include:

• Handouts or lecture notes
• Student records and information on program requirements
• Visual classroom materials such as maps or globes

Equitable and Timely Accommodation

Educational institutions must provide accessible versions of all bought, borrowed, or created materials made available to other students in a timely fashion. Regardless of whether materials were required or optional, accommodated students must not unduly wait to receive material already available to their peers. 

How to Make Educational Materials Accessible

Institutions may make some materials accessible themselves. For instance, school staff can:

• OCR image-only PDF documents using Adobe or SensusAccess type software (link on the right)
• Provide multiple ways to access content (online, PDF, Word)
• Photocopy handouts with enlarged font.
• Emboss them on a Braille printer.
• Post course outlines or calendars on websites.
• Record audio versions of print book excerpts.
• Provide alt-text for images or graphs.
• Create tactile maps, diagrams, or pictures.
• Provide captions for videos.
• Provide transcripts for audio.

Alternatively, institutions may need to contract third-party companies to produce other materials, such as Braille textbooks or tactile maps. Producers of educational materials must provide accessible or conversion-ready formats to assist in conversion processes. Producers who cannot make material accessible must provide a valid explanation of why this was not possible and provide summaries of the non-convertible aspects. 

Read more on the AODA (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act).