Possibilities for Accessible Repositories: a Case Study in ADA Title II Implementation

Institutional repositories face two types of accessibility concerns. The first is the accessibility of the repository architecture as a system to navigate. The second issue is the accessibility of the repository's content. For the latter, this content is often produced outside of the repository, and repository managers have little ability to control or mitigate accessibility issues before it is deposited. For repositories that include media files, accessibility to the content requires additional steps to create accurate text-based representations of the resource. Staff from the University of Minnesota's institutional repository share a brief overview of repository accessibility for users with disabilities, new rules in the United States regarding digital accessibility, as well as the findings of a one-year project to improve their repository's accessibility through the identification and remediation of high-use inaccessible items.