Bravo, Julia! Yes, the truth is, and our message must be:

  Accessible EVERYTHING is good and beneficial for EVERYONE.

For those [companies, library schools] competing to be the
highest of high tech and attract the largest possible market,
accessible, assistive technology is "where it's at." For sooner
or later, if not already, all of us not only will enjoy AT as we
do today, we will need it for ourselves.  Powerful, attractive
and convincing positive language wins the day as usual.

Ellen Perlow
Manager of Information Services
School of Library and Information Studies
Texas Woman's University
PO Box 425438
Denton, TX 76204-5438
E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel.: 940-898-2622 Fax: 940-898-2611


> Jenny,
> I agree with your accessment that the issue of accessibility comes down to
> dollars.  I perhaps am a little more hopeful as the baby boomers get older
> and need these features, or as in the case of cell phone, want them and
> view them as easier.  Sometimes I think our mistake is to try to sell
> "accessible" as only good for people who need special interfaces, the
> accessible interfaces I've seen in any industry make life easier for
> everybody.


> Julia Allegrini, Library Supervisor
> Northern Kentucky Talking Book Library
> 502 Scott Boulevard
> Covington KY41071

> ----------
> >         At my Library System, we talked to Innovative last year and
> > they actually tried to tell us that their frames-based out-of-the-box
> > interface was ADA-compliant.  They don't seem to grasp the scope of
> > the issue, so at the very least, we plan to add accesskey and tabindex
> > tags into the HTML we can control as the browsers begin to implement
> > HTML 4.  This will be a small step though, as we can't control 95% of
> > the results screens.
> >         I'd love to see ALA address this, but I'm not optimistic (about
> > impact on the vendors, not ALA!).  Until it comes down to dollars for
> > the vendors, they won't devote resources to this.  Especially for
> > catalogs like DRA's that are built on client-side Java.
> >
> > Jenny Levine
> > [log in to unmask]
> > Internet Development Specialist
> > Suburban Library System
> > http://www.sls.lib.il.us/
> >

> Barrier-free Web Design Online Workshop
> Workshop starts June 7, 2000
> http://www.rit.edu/~easi/workshops/easiweb.htm

Barrier-free Web Design Online Workshop
Workshop starts June 7, 2000
http://www.rit.edu/~easi/workshops/easiweb.htm