Audrey Gorman writes:
>Are you interested in seeing policy, guidelines and standards on accessibil=
>ity of electronic technology, specifically, from ALA?  What would you want =
>to see covered?  Where would you put the emphasis?  Right now we're =
>beginning to focus on web accessibility (which would include the webpac =
>issue) and on accessible library workstations, but we're in the early =
>stages.  I'd really appreciate help from this group.

        I know I have probably warn out my welcome a long time
ago, but this is a topic that could not be more central to
getting past this problem and on to new things.

        Yes, we do need technical standards and web design is the
best place to start because web technology is the closest thing
to a common format that we have seen in a long time.

        The previous message about using lynx and pwwebspeak was
on target because those browsers are generic.  Lynx is free for
the asking and I believe that pwwebspeak is reasonable.  They
represent a low-end approach that we should always strive for in
order to democratize information technology as much as possible.

        We can't blame the vendors totally when they come up with
bad design because nobody helped point them in the right
direction.
        We should be sure to set standards that don't require end
users to buy specific expensive and commercial products when
there are publicly available open source tools that work.  It is
just not that hard to do if one decides that this is how it will
be done.


Martin McCormick 405 744-7572   Stillwater, OK
OSU Center for Computing and Information services Data Communications Group

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