A book is not open if a reader cannot use it.
Open access removes a financial barrier. It does nothing about the barriers that keep a blind reader, a dyslexic reader, or a reader on a phone with a small screen and an intermittent connection from using a book. The Press treats those barriers as part of the same work.
Our Books
- EPUB 3 editions built to the EPUB Accessibility specification and tested with screen readers, with reflowable text, working heading navigation, and no fixed layouts that break at large type sizes.
- Tagged PDFs with a structure tree, reading order and language markup.
- HTML editions that work in any browser at any zoom level, with semantic markup.
- Alternative text for every image, written with the author, because describing what a figure is doing in an argument requires knowing the argument.
- Tables as real tables, with header cells marked, so a screen reader can navigate them.
- Mathematics as MathML where present, rather than as images.
- Accessibility metadata published in ONIX and in the files, so a reader can tell before downloading whether a book will work for them.
- No DRM: nothing in our files prevents assistive technology from doing its job.
This Website
We aim to meet WCAG 2.2 level AA. The site is navigable by keyboard, works with screen readers, does not depend on colour alone to convey meaning, maintains contrast ratios at or above the required thresholds, and reflows to 400% zoom without loss of content. Text is encoded as text throughout.
We test with keyboard navigation, with screen readers on more than one platform, and with automated checking, and we know that automated checking finds only some of what is wrong.
Known Limitations
The site does not yet conform fully to WCAG 2.2 AA. The known limitations are these:
- A small number of complex figures inherited from earlier projects have alt text that describes rather than fully conveys the data. We are rewriting these.
- Some third-party material we are licensed to include cannot be modified for accessibility under the terms on which we hold it.
- Older PDFs produced before our current workflow are less well tagged than current titles. We are remediating them in order of use.
Reporting Problems and Requesting Formats
If you cannot use something we publish, we would like to know. Write to queries@bassi.foundation; we aim to respond within five working days.
We will also supply a book in an alternative format on request, including large print, a plain-text version, or a file prepared for a particular assistive technology, at no charge and without requiring an explanation.