Third Party Resources Accessibility Working Group

Improving access and usability of external resources for all users.

The Third Party Resources Accessibility Working Group focuses on enhancing the accessibility of resources provided through external suppliers.

We work with our third party to vendors to ensure the best possible experience for our Library community.

Our group is dedicated to:

Seeking user feedback about accessibility challenges and needs.
Challenging publishers to ensure their content meets WCAG 2.2 Level AA standards.
Prioritising and monitoring specific accessibility improvement actions annually.
Reporting publisher performance to relevant groups, and aiding renewal decisions.
Empowering Library staff to actively participate in enhancing resource accessibility.
Collaborating with external organisations active in accessibility initiatives.

Read our full terms of reference:

Members of the working group participate by:

Maintaining timely updates on our action plan and suppliers spreadsheet.
Proactively recommending improvements and new workflows.
Sharing best practices in supplier liaison.
Ensuring equal distribution of responsibilities and clear communication of issues.
Leading proactive engagement with Library staff and users.
Communicating successes and positive changes in the Library, University and beyond.

Find out more about our areas of focus for the next 12 months:

Team	Goals for 2025	Status
Subscriptions	Elsevier (revisit)
Subscriptions	Taylor & Francis (revisit)
Subscriptions	Emerald
Subscriptions	Duke University Press
Subscriptions	Complete the streamlining of the Lighthouse workflow
Acquisitions	Sage e-books (mini-audit)	Completed and sent to publisher for feedback
Acquisitions	Springer e-books (mini-audit)	In progress: send to publisher once screen reader check is completed and publisher contact is verified
Acquisitions	Elsevier (mini-audit)
Acquisitions	Oxford University Press (mini-audit)
Acquisitions	EBSCO ebooks (mini-audit)
Acquisitions	VLebooks (mini-audit)
Teaching Collections	Kortext
Teaching Collections	Oxford LawTrove
Teaching Collections	Clinical Key
E-Resources	Gale?
E-Resources	EBSCO databases
All	Establish and implement an accessibility survey for members of the Library Student Team	In progress: Initial survey completed and shared with the Library Student Team (ran 13/3-27/3/25). Only received one completed return.
All	Complete and update a vendor’s contact directory

The group meets approximately every six weeks, alternating between online and face-to-face sessions, each lasting about 30 minutes.

Key governance responsibilities include:

Developing an annual action plan.
Encouraging staff-wide engagement in accessibility activities.
Clearly communicating activities and outcomes to Library staff and stakeholders.
Publishing the results of our third party accessibility audits transparently with our Library community

To find out more about our auditing and recording process, please see our 'Library Search' accessibility statement:

If you are interested in contributing to or learning more about the group's activities, please contact Kristian Scott:

Person	Representing	Responsibilities / areas of interest
Kristian Scott	Digital Development	Chair and link with Library EDI Steering Group
Des Coyle	Acquisitions	E-book accessibility
Helen Charles	Subscriptions	Link to Content Budget Management Group
Phil Somers	Subscriptions	Journal article accessibility
Mark Hastings	Subscriptions	Journal article accessibility
Beth O’Donoghue	eResources	Database accessibility
Alison Hall	Acquisitions	E-book accessibility
Jane Hurn	Teaching Collections	E-book accessibility, Law Trove, Kortext, Elsevier ClincialKey
Alexander Hill	Teaching Collections	E-book accessibility, Law Trove, Kortext, Elsevier ClincialKey
Milo Theobald	Collections	Screen reader checking