BISG Quick Start Guide to Accessible Publishing March 2016 Compiled by the BISG Content Structure Committee’s Accessible Publishing Working Group FEATURING Creating accessible content How accessibility adds value Building teams & processes Legal requirements Glossary And more... BISG Quick Start Guide to Accessible Publishing March 2016 1| BISG Quick Start Guide to Accessible Publishing | © 2016 Book Industry Study Group | 9780940016002 Copyright © 2016, the Book Industry Study Group, Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA. The Book Industry Study Group, Inc. (“BISG”) owns all rights to this publication and the copyrights therein. This publication is made available free-of-charge. Anyone who downloads it may post a copy on his or her company’s website or distribute it in physical or digital form to others, as long as the purposes are noncommercial. Anyone wishing to use parts of this publication in presentations, blog posts, speeches, etc. should provide proper attribution to the Book Industry Study Group. Book Industry Study Group 145 West 45th Street, Suite 601 New York, NY 10036 646-336-7141 | www.bisg.org Version 1.0 March 21, 2016 2| BISG Quick Start Guide to Accessible Publishing | © 2016 Book Industry Study Group | 9780940016002 BISG Quick Start Guide to Accessible Publishing was written and compiled for the Book Industry Study Group, Inc. (BISG) by members of the BISG Content Structure Committee’s Accessible Publishing Working Group. Edited by Robin Seaman (Benetech) and Julie Morris (BISG) Copyedited by Patricia Fogarty EPUB 3 file created by Firebrand Technologies Translations from the English sponsored by VitalSource ISBN (English language PDF): 978-0-940016-00-2 ISBN (English language EPUB): 978-1-936757-64-0 ISBN (French language EPUB): 978-1-936757-63-3 ISBN (German language EPUB): 978-1-936757-65-7 ISBN (Spanish language EPUB): 978-1-936757-66-4 ISBN (Italian language EPUB): 978-1-936757-67-1 ISBN (Korean language EPUB): 978-1-936757-68-8 Contributors: Bill Kasdorf, (Apex CoVantage), Chair, Content Structure Committee Robin Seaman (Benetech), Chair, Accessible Publishing Working Group Julie Morris, Director of Standards & Best Practices, Book Industry Study Group Robert Martinengo, AMAC Accessibility Solutions and Research Center Edward McCoyd, Association of American Publishers Charles LaPierre, Benetech Sue-Ann Ma, Benetech Julie Noblitt, Benetech Pat Pagano, Barnes & Noble/ Nook George Kerscher, dAISY Consortium, IdPF Ted Gies, Elsevier Tripp Narup, Elsevier Joshua Tallent, Firebrand Technologies Liz Kessler, Hachette Book Group USA Soo Choi, HarperCollins Publishers Eugene Reyes, HarperCollins Publishers Sarah Hilderley, IdPF Rick Johnson, Ingram Content Group Tzviya Siegman, John Wiley & Sons Lauren Challman, Kaplan Publishing Nou Moua, Kaplan Publishing Brian hochhalter, Macmillan Learning Lisa Nicks, McGraw-Hill Education Isabelle Burkhart, Pearson Mia Lipner, Pearson Elaine Ober, Pearson Jonathan Thurston, Pearson Jean Kaplansky, Safari Books Online deborah Kaplan, Safari Books Online Jon Simpson, Quarto Publishing Group 3| BISG Quick Start Guide to Accessible Publishing | © 2016 Book Industry Study Group | 9780940016002 Comments? We value your feedback! Please take this brief survey to tell us what you think of this publication, and any thoughts you may have on how we can make it better: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/APQSGfeedback 4| BISG Quick Start Guide to Accessible Publishing | © 2016 Book Industry Study Group | 9780940016002 Table of Contents Who Is This Guide For? ................................................................................................................................. 6 Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 8 Why Accessibility Is Important .................................................................................................................... 10 Accessible Content Creates Value ............................................................................................................... 12 How to Create Accessible Content ............................................................................................................. 14 How to Set Up Internal Teams and Processes ............................................................................................ 18 Developing a Baseline for Accessibility ....................................................................................................... 20 Overview of Legal Requirements ................................................................................................................ 21 Appendix A: Resources ............................................................................................................................... 22 Appendix B: Glossary .................................................................................................................................. 45 Appendix C: A Baseline for Accessibility ..................................................................................................... 52 Appendix D: Code Samples & Additional Resources for Top Tips .............................................................. 54 Appendix E: Legal Requirements, Broken Down by Region ........................................................................ 64 Comments? ................................................................................................................................................. 79 5| BISG Quick Start Guide to Accessible Publishing | © 2016 Book Industry Study Group | 9780940016002 Who Is This Guide For? The issue of accessibility for publications is almost universally acknowledged as important and even urgent, but it is so complex that publishers, developers, and others in the publishing ecosystem often don't quite know where to start. There are a multitude of resources available (most of them excellent, many quite technical, and some well intentioned but unfortunately contradictory)—so many, in fact, that it is hard to sort out which ones are the best fit for a given person or situation. This BISG Quick Start Guide to Accessible Publishing is designed to be that good place to start. It is written and organized in a manner that provides both a brief, high-level overview of the key issues that everybody, from executives to production staff, needs to understand, as well as more detailed guidance and resources for developers, legal staff, and managers in editorial and production roles. ● The main body of the document—the “quick” part—is for everybody. It provides a brief overview of why accessibility is not only important but makes good business sense, for publishers of all types. It also provides a set of high-level tips for producing accessible content, reports on an emerging consensus regarding minimum requirements, and touches on workflow and legal issues that are discussed in more depth in appendices. ● Developers and production staff will likely then focus on Appendix D: Code Samples and Additional Resources for Top Tips. This expands the Top Tips in the base document by providing practical recommendations, coding examples, and links to relevant resources. ● Managers will benefit from the section entitled “How to Set Up Internal Teams and Processes.” The good news: it's not rocket science, and improving the accessibility of your publications can improve your production processes as well. ● Executives and other management staff will be interested in the section entitled “Developing a Baseline for Accessibility.” This describes an international initiative, crossing all sectors of publishing, to develop a consensus regarding the minimum requirements for accessible content. While this work is not final at the time this publication was written, it provides a glimpse into this emerging consensus that all publishing organizations will need 6| BISG Quick Start Guide to Accessible Publishing | © 2016 Book Industry Study Group | 9780940016002 to address. The baseline document is further explained in the Appendix C: A Baseline for Accessibility. ● Both executive and legal staff will want to read the section entitled “Overview of Legal Requirements” and Appendix E: Legal Requirements, Broken Down by Region, which provides an in-depth introduction to the existing and emerging statutory and other legal requirements for accessibility in various countries as they apply to various types of publications. ● Finally, there are two appendices of general interest: a glossary to help you understand the terms used in this publication and in the accessible publishing world, and a comprehensive guide to resources and available services to help you make your publications more accessible in practical, affordable ways. 7| BISG Quick Start Guide to Accessible Publishing | © 2016 Book Industry Study Group | 9780940016002 Executive Summary There are over 54 million Americans with disabilities, and they, and their immediate friends and family, have a disposable spending power of over $220 billion. There are more people with print disabilities globally than the total print sales for the Twilight and Harry Potter series’ combined. EPUB 3, the first commercial file format to incorporate a wealth of accessibility