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Mining the Process: Alt-Text Services in Small Shops | Proposal No: 1996 | Bios & Handouts |
| Length of Session (in hours): 1-hr | Format: Lecture | Expertise Level: Intermediate | Type of session: Not provided |
Summary of Session |
| This is a “clinic” designed for those who are already familiar with the legalities, difficulties, and limitations of providing alt-text services and are looking for help in how to streamline and document the process from top to bottom. |
Abstract |
| Students are more aware than ever that they can have copies of their required readings in accessible formats, and more students are self-identifying for disability services. Combined, it means the demand for alternative text services is not going down with arrival of ebooks, it’s going up. Those who have worked on securing alt-text formats for class materials knows it is not a straightforward process. Handling outreach, requests, conversion and fulfillment can overwhelm the resources of “small shop” accessibility offices where one or two people are wearing ten different hats. But there are ways to use workflows that will ease your work load, increase productivity, and give you markers for assessment of services. This presentation breaks down the important factors you need to track, how to create in-house processes that help and not hinder, and discusses the value add on of services such as ATN, Bookshare, and Hathi Trust as well as workflow management options and other tools. |
KimBoo York, MLIS, is the Assistive Technology coordinator at Florida State University’s Student Disability Resource Center, where she has worked for over three years. A librarian with both a technology and graphic design background, York returned to graduate school to earn her masters after many years in the business world honing her project management skills. She procures and implements assistive technologies for on-campus, online and distance students at FSU and supervises a small staff dedicated to alternative text services. She was instrumental in both designing and implementing the SDRC’s student/staff Alt-Text Online Portal using SharePoint.