Re: TIFF as accessibility option

This is also a problem that arose in the Google Libraries project 
(http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/nbreader.asp?ArticleID=16307), where 
the plan was to scan the library resources of Harvard, Stanford, the 
University of Michigan, and Oxford University, as well as the New York 
Public Library (NYPL) and make them available for online searching. I 
don't know what has happened recently, but the original plan was to show 
the search results in a tiff file (which, since it is an image file, is 
inaccessible to screen readers). John Wilkin at U Mich libraries had 
brought the need for accessibility to Google's attention.

Mike

DavidSloan wrote:
>
> This is interesting - while not an answer to Christophe's question, I 
> was involved in a review of the accessibility of the UK JSTOR web site 
> back in 2000. We straightaway noticed the inaccessibility of the 
> service to people who couldn't read the images of scanned journal 
> pages - back then as I recall the alt attribute provided for images of 
> pages was something like "a picture of this page".
>
> Also, even then there was a document text search option which meant 
> that textual versions of each journal did exist, though the site also 
> explained why they did not make these text versions available to users 
> - a policy that looks like it still exists 7 years on.
>
> David
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org on behalf of Christophe Strobbe
> Sent: Mon 3/5/2007 4:16 PM
> To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Subject: TIFF as accessibility option
>
>
> Hi,
>
> JSTOR is a not-for-profit organisation that maintains an archive of
> scholarly journals. Journal articles are presented as one web page
> per printed page, with the "text" of the article presented in a GIF
> file. (Alt text is something like "Page [3] of Modern Language
> Journal, Vol. 75, No. 1, 1991".) When you choose to download an
> article, you have two options: PDF (recommended; you can choose
> between high-quality and fax-quality resolution) or "Accessibility
> Option - TIFF Format". The PDF contains the text of the article in
> the form of scanned images. There are no plain text or HTML-versions
> available, even though JSTOR uses raw text versions for indexing. The
> text after the link to the TIFF file says: "This image based file
> type is designed for use with assistive technology such as document
> scanner/readers like Kurzweil, OCR programs, or screen magnifiers."
> There is also a link to instructions on how to use this option
> (<http://www.jstor.org/help/tiff-download.html>). Hence, JSTOR claims
> that they meet WCAG 1.0 Level 1: "In addition to the improving the
> accessibility of the archived journal content in JSTOR through the
> creation of the TIFF download option, JSTOR is now compliant with
> Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and W3C WAI Priority 1
> standards" (<http://www.jstor.org/about/accessibility.html>).
>
> Does anybody on this list know of similar practices (and false
> claims) in journal publishing or archiving?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Christophe Strobbe
>
>
> --
> Christophe Strobbe
> K.U.Leuven - Departement of Electrical Engineering - Research Group
> on Document Architectures
> Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 - 3001 Leuven-Heverlee - BELGIUM
> tel: +32 16 32 85 51
> http://www.docarch.be/
>
>
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>
>
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