Accessibility audit of the Midwest Chapter of the Medical Library Association

Abstract

Background: In 2023, JJ Pionke became President of the Midwest Chapter of the Medical Library Association (MWCMLA). He determined that for his presidential year, he would form a task force to determine the accessibility levels of the chapter and remediate accessibility issues as appropriate.

Case Presentation: To accomplish the accessibility audit of the MWCMLA, Pionke formed an Accessibility Task Force that was time limited to one year. Task force meetings were held once a month to keep people accountable and to share out progress and requests for assistance. The task force was broken up into four teams: annual meeting, policy, social media, and website. Task force members could be on more than one team. The goals of each team were generally the same: what are other organizations doing, what do we have already if anything, and develop best practices/policy/etc. as needed.

Conclusions: The teams fulfilled their mandate by creating best practices/guidelines/policies documents.  Some accessibility remediation was needed for the chapter website. The task force’s findings and materials were shared out among the MWCMLA as well as passed on to the presidents of the other chapters, many of whom had expressed interest in the results.