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Our commitment to accessibility at Taylor & Francis
Video and transcript
As one of the largest global publishers of academic content, we take it as our responsibility to ensure accessibility is central to our publishing, to improve learning outcomes, and ensure a more equitable and fair approach to content accessibility.
In 2019, we launched the Accessibility Working Group (AWG) to support changing customer and legal requirements throughout our publishing environment: eBooks, journals, and websites. The AWG is comprised of colleagues from across the organization who share a goal to make accessible content available, with a firm focus on customer experience, understanding our customers’ needs, and driving changes to provide the best quality content in the most accessible way for everyone.
We recognize that we have more work to do, so customers can expect further benefits as we evolve our platforms and products to provide more detailed accessibility metadata and the improved and increased use of alt text and accessibility features within our products.
In this video, hear from Lindsay Sherriff, Content Management Analyst, Nicholas Everitt, Head of Digital Production for Journals, and Stacy Scott, Head of Accessibility.
Transcript and audio description
Fast-motion shot of the outside of an office with a busy road.
Stacy Scott: I just love photography. I'm pretty good at finding the spot that I need to be in, and how I need to be standing or crouching to get that perfect shot.
Lindsay Sheriff: I'm not quite a surfer, but I love bodyboarding.
Nicholas Everitt: I enjoy running, although I don't know whether my body enjoys it quite so much.
Lindsay: My name is Lindsay Sherriff, and I'm a Content Management Analyst.
Nicholas: It's Nicholas Everitt, and I'm Head of Digital Production for Journals.
Stacy: My name is Stacy Scott, and I'm Accessibility Manager for Taylor & Francis.
Shots of Taylfor & Francis logo in a reception area and various meetings with small groups of people.
Stacy: Taylor & Francis is one of the largest scholarly publishers. So the role of the Accessibility Manager for Taylor & Francis is to create a cohesive approach to our work in accessibility.
Fast-motion shot of a crowded city center.
Lindsay: I work on the VIP inbox, which stands for visually impaired persons, which is just an umbrella term really, for people who have print disability needs.
Close-up shot of a person using a braille reader.
Stacy: There are many different methods and tools used by Taylor & Francis to ensure the accessibility of their content. Ensuring we can convert PDF to EPUB.
Shot of a printing press.
Nicholas: We've got 2,500 journals. We publish over 160,000 articles a year. And introducing alternative text and other accessibility features into that is what we're about on a day-to-day basis.
Another shot of a printing press overlaid with the copy: "Taylor & Francis" is committed to ensuring all our products, platforms, and websites are accessible to as wide an audience as possible."
Lindsay: I've been at Taylor & Francis for about four years now, but before that I was a secondary school and sixth-form teacher of IT and computer science. Working as a teacher really opened my eyes to the diverse needs of an individual.
Shot of an empty classroom and a student.
Stacy: I was actually born visually impaired. I had a lot of support from support teachers and staff, which was wonderful, and it got me through school. I then went to a university in Scotland, and it was a massive shock because all of that support wasn't there. I spent most nights trying to scan books and journals and I would take hours scanning one, and so it was really not a pleasant experience having to do that.
Lindsay: What we do, is we allow customers and institutions to access and to request alternative digital formats. It's fantastic. It's so accessible to those students who used to really, really struggle with the printed format.
Shot of customers using Taylor & Francis accessible tools.
Stacy: I've basically based my career on education for people with vision impairments and other print disabilities, which led me to Taylor & Francis.
Shot of librarian cataloging printed books.
Nicholas: Since our accessibility manager joined the company, it's just brought renewed focus and energy and allowed the business to coalesce around that effort to really increase our accessibility across the board.
Close-up shots of participants in Taylor & Francis meetings.
Stacy: I was nervous, if I'm honest, that I would've been a token role. I've never felt like a token in Taylor & Francis. The employees are incredibly interested in accessibility, and come to me very often to talk about how to make something more accessible.
Close-up shot of someone's finger on a touch screen and a close-up shot of a person typing on a laptop.
Lindsay: She works hard – she really understands what we need to provide.
Blurred shot of a person walking on a beach overlaid with the copy: "We are continually improving the quality and accessibility of our content, to address the needs of all customers, and support them to reach their highest potential."
Nicholas: It's fulfilling to know that I'm working for a company that takes issues like accessibility seriously.
Aerial shot of a busy desk with overlaid copy: "2021 International Excellence Award for Accessible Publishing; Accessible Books Consortium." This is followed by an aerial close-up of a person with black boots walking on a wet sidewalk.
Lindsay: Being able to work for Taylor & Francis and see all the hard work they're putting into accessibility for EPUB files and PDF is really amazing.
Shot of silhouette of someone using a smartphone.
Stacy: Accessibility is a stepping stone to inclusion. Taylor & Francis's ultimate goal is to have everything as accessible as possible, so that we have the complete, ultimate inclusion experience for everyone.
Shot of a scrolling screenshot of Taylor & Francis website "about" page and a person using a smartphone followed by a fast-motion shot of a street in the U.S.
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