Hi!

Recently I have posted some questions about the accessibility of blogs 
and blog readers. I received a response to my last question from Mrs. 
E.A. Draffan at the University of Southampton, pointing me to the site 
for Web2Access (http://www.web2access.org.uk/product/151). This site 
presents the results of evaluations for a number of social networking 
technologies, and the results are broken down for different types of 
disabilities.

I became involved in a project called North Texas 23: A Roundup of Web 
2.0 Technology (http://northtexas23.blogspot.com/), hosted by North 
Texas Library Partners. We are to start a blog, and then explore 23 
types of social networking technology and make comments about each on 
our blog. This a project hosted by librarians for librarians; this same 
type of project is being done all over the U.S., in an effort to 
familiarize librarians with these technologies and how they may be used 
in library settings.

I began my blog on Wordpress - The DAISy (ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2005) 
Connection (http://daisyconnect.wordpress.com/) after recommendations 
from some of you, and I intended to discuss topics related to DAISy, and 
intersperse my comments about North Texas 23 as well. With my comments 
on North Texas 23, I also wanted to comment on the accessibility of the 
new social networking technologies. I soon found that collecting 
criticisms on the social networking items was quite time-consuming, and 
had to scale back my comments on DAISy for the time being.

Mrs. Draffan's recommendation of the Web2Access site will make it much 
simpler for me to make basic comments about the accessibility issues of 
the remaining issues in North Texas 23, and I am so greatful. To date, I 
am not aware of any other site so comprehensive in its approach.

If any of you would like to check out the DAISy (ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2005) 
Connection (http://daisyconnect.wordpress.com/) and comment on my posts, 
for good or ill, I would enjoy hearing from you.  

The North Texas 23 project will be over by the first of September, and 
then I hope to concentrate on posts about DAISy.

Sincerely,

Mary J. Barnett
Denton, Texas