Ask the Expert, 17 December 2024

Topic: Accessibility and digital lending platforms for libraries 

Host: Katie Durand, project manager and digital accessibility expert at the French Federation for the blind 

Expert: Francesco Pandini, who serves as the Project Manager and Training Manager at MLOL (Media Library OnLine), Italy's pioneering network of public, academic, and school libraries focused on digital lending. 

Introduction

In a fully accessible digital publishing ecosystem ebooks also need to be made more widely available to users in an accessible way. The main question of this session is therefore ‘how can lending platforms allow users to borrow ebooks through mainstream library systems?’. 

Francesco Pandini provides some information about the Media Library OnLine. MLOL started in 1993, working with multimedia contents and web content management systems in the nineties. They produced CD-ROM encyclopedia and later the digital libraries. MLOL started in 2009. It’s a digital landing platform that allows a library to convey digital content, like ebooks, newspapers, but also audiobooks and movies through the Internet. Users can access it from any device 24/7. 

Media Library Online (MLOL)

MLOL develops a user experience and a user interface for end users, but also for libraries; there is a front end for the user and a back end for libraries. MLOL also developed an app for desktop and mobile, called Molly book, an eReader. MLOL is now used in about 6,500 libraries in Italy, public libraries, and 2,500 schools.  

The MLOL catalog is formed by 150,000 ebooks from all major Italian publishers. Also 5,000 audiobooks, 8,000 international newspapers, through press, reader, movies, music, and open access contents that we select from libraries, archives, and museums around the world talking about ebooks. 

They have ebooks in Epub and Pdf format. But obviously on MLOL you will find much more of the 1st type, pdf’s are hardly used; nearly 97% of our loans are on epub format. 

They negotiate rights with publishers, and each publisher has its own business model, which is based on based on some parameters like the simultaneous access to the content. For example, there is ebooks in one copy, one user form: a library must buy a digital copy of a single ebook, and can then lend a certain number of times before they have to buy another copy. Then there is another model, a sort of paper loan, where a library buys a license to lend the publishers catalog. So patrons don't have to wait because there's no queue in this kind of model. It's the opposite of one copy, one user. 

Questions & Answers

How did MLOL come to the current solution of an accessible platform? How was that journey?

The first thing was to introduce the LIA label for accessible ebooks. So when you go to through the MLOL catalog and you choose a book, you can see if that book is accessible or not, and which features it involves. It’s a certification. But that is not enough: the whole ebooks ecosystem that allows you to log in, then search for an item, then download it and then access it, needs to be accessible. So we started working on the website. And then, years later, we started working on our MLOL ebook reader app.  

The work on accessibility never ends. So next year we will develop a completely new UX and UI for our website and our application. We have to start again from the beginning with the knowledge base that we have now. We will focus on accessibility first, because it's not something that you could easily adjust later. It's something that must be included in the overall workflow from the start of a new project.

Do you have any safeguards in place to ensure that the ebooks are not stripped of any of their accessibility features? How do you ensure that the libraries that you provide your service to are integrating that into an accessible library portal?

Since the introduction of epub and epub 3, we focussed on digital rights management (drm), because we knew that technologies like Adobe block specific accessibility features that prevent blind or visually impaired to be completely autonomous in the reading experience. So we had to start with the website, and we took care of the accessibility of, for example, the homepage of the of the platform of the login procedure, the search, the single item, or the download pages, so that the entire process would be accessible. We first used automatic tools and then a manual check that has allowed to correct some specific aspects of the code. And then we worked on our MLOLebook reader app, which is now completely accessible for desktop versions and on almost fully accessible on mobile devices. Libraries can also integrate our ebooks in their catalog. But then it's a problem about the accessibility of their catalogs.

Do you provide libraries with any sort of guidance on how they should best integrate your catalog?

It's an API, so libraries can show our catalog on their catalog. From there, the user jumps directly on MLOL’s item page. Everything then happens on MLOL. There is no specific guideline about accessibility on this specific topic, because most of the process happens then on the MLOL website.  

Accessibility metadata is a hot topic and how this is displayed to the end users. The end user knows what features have been provided within the publication. 

Do you have an automated solution for mapping the ONIX and MARC 21 catalog metadata?

Yes, there is an automatic solution for mapping metadata information between different metadata standards. MLOL manages API’s that map ONIX from publishers, and there is a mapping for CCNP classification from third party agencies. MLOL then provides a partial output in MARC 21, for integrating MLOL into the library opex with library catalogs. 

How do you communicate that to the libraries via the MLOL platform?

MLOL leaves the communication to the library patrons to the libraries and librarians. MLOL organises webinars and on-site courses for librarians. When libraries want to, MLOL can organise on-site courses or webinars for patrons. In these sessions MLOL starts with all the technicalities of the accessibility, tools, and features. Then they apply those topics to the services. Communication about accessibility to patrons is part of this.  

On the website MLOL shows the LIA label and the link to a page with all the accessibility features on a specific epub, and on each portal there is a filter that allows patrons to identify with the accessible ebooks for every search query that you do on the portal. A page is shown which collects all of the documents about accessibility. 

[Katie Durand] The Federation for the blind in France completed a project for the Ministry of Culture where they have done user testing with blind and partially sighted users who went through the whole user journey, to connect to a catalogue, to search the catalogue, to borrow the book, to download it, to open it. There's lots of interesting information and lots of questions that came foward in this project. One of the things that was noticed was how difficult it was compared to let's say a website where you remain within a web environment. When you're on a library portal, you have to download a publication, and then you need to maybe go to your inbox to go and get the link. There's lots of navigating between different environments, and that's very difficult, particularly for users of screen readers. 

What about the interface of your portal, howe does it provide as much information as possible of an accessible point of view?

Not only the sort of metadata, but also just guiding users on what is EPUB? What is a DRM? What application do they need to download prior to reading the book?

It’s about making this process more transparent for the user. Talking about for instance DRM is less important; it is important for a user how they can get the ebook on their tablet or computer. MLOL uses Readium as a protection for ebooks. The MLOL ebook reader is developed for that reason. 

The app is easy to use for any user because it cuts down the number of clicks that you have to do to access a publication. And then there is everything in the app: you can find the catalog, you borrow directly from the app, you download and you open your publication (so there's no email sent to the user). There are no links. It's all a build in procedure that's building the app. The accessibility part was possible because of Readium. 

If users want to read an ebook, they do not need a new reader. They don't need a website. They can go directly to the app and that is very important for every user, not just specific users.

Did you conduct much user testing with users while you were developing this app?

When we released the app we tested just with librarians. So we didn't do specific user testing. We will do this in 2025. 

LIA reviewed the application, so they use their collaborators to test the application and evaluate the accessibility of it. So that was one part of the process of the accessibilization of the application. LIA also organized webinars at MLOL which learned our developers a lot. 

Can you give us some examples of the type of improvements that were made following those tests by LIA?

We took care of the web content, accessibility, guidelines and we aligned the publication to WCAG AA level of accessibility. The real improvement is that now the ecosystem on desktop apps is completely accessible, and compatible with screen readers like Jaws or NVDA or Narrator on Windows. The most prominent thing about the application in terms of accessibility is a text to speech feature which allows you to listen to a book with a karaoke effect that shows you which part of the text voice is reading. 

What are the main evolutions that users can expect with the next version?

We would like to simplify the procedure once more. We want to cut down the number of clicks. We want a better integrated ecosystem and we want to give better advices to users that use the website.

What strategies do you think can be implemented to raise awareness among publishing libraries about the importance of integrating accessibility?

To include the concepts of accessibility which are real life problems into the workflows of publisher and librarians is very problematic, because publishers need to develop a process that fully embraces what we used to call the principle of born accessible. You have to integrate accessibily from the start along the entire production chain.  

And as a library that you must be sure that you offer a platform that is designed according to accessibility criteria in every step. And then you have to make communication work, maybe with a local organization. Meetings with people are very important. And there needs to be investments in library e-lending. 

Who would be borrowing these books? Who would benefit from these books are maybe still very much oriented towards specialized libraries, and that they're not aware that the mainstream libraries are now offering these services.