Day/Time/Room
June 17, 2026 | 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. | HUB 250
Title: Oh No, a Table! Library Publishing Experiences in PDF Accessibility and Remediation Work at Large Universities
Presenters:
- Angela Watters, she/her, Digital Publishing Specialist, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
- Angel Peterson, she/her, Production Specialist & Accessibility Coordinator, Penn State University
- Iliana Cosme-Brooks, she/her, Open Publishing Coordinator, Virginia Tech Publishing & Press
- Kate Sheridan, she/her, Publishing Librarian, University of Minnesota
Description: Due to the new regulations for Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), library publishers are responsible for making their publications—both the content and their platforms—accessible. This roundtable discussion will have representatives from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Virginia Tech, Penn State University, and University of Minnesota discuss the unique challenges of creating accessible content. These challenges include working with different publishing platforms, publication types, and accessibility tools; applying best practices and creating workflows; and working with publication outputs, namely PDFs. Panelists will also discuss how changes in publishing and accessibility technologies have changed their approaches to remediation work (e.g., updates to screen readers) as well as specific remediation challenges, like writing and placing long descriptions for complex images and tagging tables. This presentation will address best practices and challenges creating accessible content, from the source file or platform export to the final tagged PDF. Panelists will also discuss the unique needs and use cases of scholarly publications and their experiences communicating those needs to their universities.