Library Accessibility Alliance
The Florida Virtual Campus (FLVC) joins the Library Accessibility Alliance (LAA) as a partner to advance accessibility for library electronic resources, with the goal of providing equal access to information for all library users. FLVC represents 28 state colleges and 12 public universities in Florida. Under the LAA umbrella, members of the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL), Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA), Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA), Washington Research Library Consortium, Ivy Plus Library Confederation (IPLC), University System of Maryland & Affiliated Institutions (USMAI), and Florida Virtual Campus (FLVC) work together toward improving the accessibility of third-party electronic resource library platforms, enhancing the living document that is the Library Accessibility Toolkit, communicate LAA’s value to membership and prospective members, and collaborate on analyses and training opportunities.
Serving the 40 public colleges and universities in Florida, FLVC provides services to assist nearly 1.3 million students, faculty, and staff, including a statewide e-resource collection, a suite of centralized, statewide digital library services, and in-person and online training. Rebel Cummings-Sauls, Director of Digital Services and Open Educational Resources at Florida Virtual Campus, immediately began leveraging the knowledge and skills of the vendor relations committee, helping libraries have constructive conversations about accessibility with vendors.
This mutually beneficial partnership with FLVC will help shift library culture toward access justice for their member libraries. "Libraries continually come together to work on important issues for our communities, and accessibility of our great resources to all is certainly something we want to ensure. Joining the LAA will place our network of members in a prime position to positively impact our work in providing high quality, accessible resources to a million plus Floridians." (Cummings-Sauls)
The Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) formed the Library E-Resource Accessibility Group in 2015 to address concerns about the accessibility of library e-resources. Since 2016, BTAA has been conducting third-party evaluations of electronic resource platforms and collections, publicly posting the evaluations for review by vendors and libraries. In 2019, the Association of Southern Research Libraries (ASERL) partnered with the BTAA creating the Library Accessibility Alliance.