Open but Not for All: A Survey of Open Educational Resource Librarians on Accessibility
Open accessAbstract
This project sought to study how much academic librarians who work with open educational resources (OERs) know about accessibility, as well as how they incorporate accessibility into the products of their work. A survey was sent out through email list services in spring 2020, and any librarian worldwide who works with OERs was invited to participate; 193 responded in full. Just under half of librarians said they always consider accessibility when working with faculty to create or adapt OERs, but fewer than a third said they consider accessibility a factor when adding OERs to their collections.
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There is a general lack of awareness concerning accessibility and disability-related issues.
“There is also a general lack of awareness concerning accessibility and disability-related issues (García-González et al., 2021;Jembu Rajkumar et al., 2020;Schultz & Azadbakht, 2021).”
From Exploring the role of generative AI in higher education: Semi-structured interviews with students with disabilities (2025) · cites this paper as Schultz & Azadbakht, 2021
The ‘Librarian Accessibility Knowledge and Training’ section says accessibility remains an emerging focus and that librarians may not be aware of all it involves. But it also says most surveyed OER librarians reported a basic understanding of web accessibility. The paper supports a need for greater expertise in this group, not a general lack of awareness of accessibility and disability-related issues. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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Research works printed but not linked: 19
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- Beth Ashmore, Jill E. Grogg, and Hannah Rosen, "An Accessibility Survey of Libraries: Results, Best Prac- tices, and Next Steps," Serials Librarian 78, no. 1/4 (June 1, 2020): 215, https://doi.org/10.1080/0361526X.2020.1703496. · DOI
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- Xiangling Zhang et al., "Accessibility within Open Educational Resources and Practices for Disabled Learners: A Systematic Literature Review," Smart Learning Environments 7, no. 1 (January 3, 2020): 1, https://doi.org/10.1186/ s40561-019-0113-2. · DOI
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Pierrès, O., Darvishy, A., & Christen, M. (2025) · Education and Information Technologies · doi:10.1007/s10639-024-13134-8 · Cited by 48 · see citing works
“There is also a general lack of awareness concerning accessibility and disability-related issues (García-González et al., 2021; Jembu Rajkumar et al., 2020; Schultz & Azadbakht, 2021).”
- Authors
- Schultz, T., & Azadbakht, E.
- Affiliations
- University of Nevada, Reno (US)
- Corresponding author
- Schultz, Teresa
- Venue
- College & Research Libraries
- Publisher
- American Library Association
- Published
- 2021
- Volume
- 82
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 755
- ISSN
- 0010-0870 (ISSN-L)
- 2150-6701
- OpenAlex
- W3175840329
- Cited by
- 12
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2
- FWCI
- 2.12
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- College & Research Libraries (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Open Education and E-Learning
- Social Sciences › Human Factors and Ergonomics › Digital Accessibility for Disabilities
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Library Collection Development and Digital Resources
- Keywords
- open educational resources, accessibility, academic librarians, library resources, OER adaptation, faculty collaboration, accessibility for people with disabilities
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