Accessibility Speaker Series

Introduction

As compliance dates for the updated federal web content accessibility regulations (ADA Title II and HHS Section 504) approach, library and archives workers have expressed interests and needs for more defined support to strengthen preparations in targeted library functional areas. The Alliance is hosting an accessibility webinar series to respond to these expressed interests and needs.

All webinars are open and free to Alliance members, affiliate participants (including the Archives & Manuscripts Collections Service, Courier Service, and Electronic Resources Program), and staff at academic libraries in Oregon, Idaho, and Washington.

Format & Supports

All webinars will be hosted in Zoom and recorded. Recordings will be posted within two weeks.

Live webinars will use Zoom’s automated captions and transcripts, and recordings will have human-provided and edited captions and transcripts. Presentation slides will use large font size, and there will be limited flashing (no strobing) for slide transitions, animations, and videos. Registration forms include an option to indicate additional accessibility support needs.

Update: Webinar materials will include summary notes written by members of the Accessibility Standing Group.

Session Schedule

Web Content Accessibility Regulations: Updates in Conversation

Speaker: Judy Risch, Title IX & Equity Access Services Special Advisor, Grand River Solutions

Date: November 5, 2025, 2:00pm-3:00pm Pacific

Recording & Materials:

Online Access:

  • Access to these files is limited to Alliance members, affiliate participants, and staff at academic libraries in Oregon, Idaho, and Washington. (Unsure if you’re an affiliate participant? See details above.)
  • Please contact Amy Coughenour via email to request assistance.

Description: During this webinar, Judy Risch will discuss recent updates regarding the web content accessibility regulations (ADA Title II and HHS Section 504), including the DOJ’s regulatory agenda and related litigation filings. After these updates, we’ll have a moderated conversation for Judy to respond to participants’ questions. The registration form (linked above) includes an option to submit questions before the webinar. Participants will also be able to share questions during the webinar as time allows, including via anonymous Q&A.

Objectives:

  • Recognize the current status of the web content accessibility regulations
  • Identify relevant sources of information to maintain awareness
  • Investigate and collaborate to achieve practical accessibility support

Speaker Bio: Judith Risch, J.D., Ph.D., is the Title IX & Equity Access Services Special Advisor at Grand River Solutions. Judy brings over two decades of invaluable experience from her tenure at the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the U.S. Department of Education.

Judy is nationally recognized as a foremost expert in digital accessibility, having served as a senior attorney at the Department of Education, where she co-led the Office for Civil Rights National Digital Accessibility Team. Her role involved overseeing a team of attorneys and investigators across twelve regional offices, enforcing digital accessibility policies and advising educational institutions and business leaders on compliance with federal disability discrimination laws.

While at OCR, Judy provided expert technical guidance during the development of the new ADA Title II amendments that cover digital accessibility. She also contributed her expertise to updating the 2024 Section 504 Regulations regarding digital accessibility for the Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights. Judy regularly advises and presents to educational institutions and business leaders throughout the country about how to effectively comply with federal civil rights laws, especially those that relate to disability discrimination, access, and technology.

Tools and Methods for Integrating Accessibility into Resource Sharing and Fulfillment

Speaker: Michele Bromley, Digital Accessibility and Content Manager, Portland State University

Date: December 9, 2025, 11:00am-12:00pm Pacific

Recording & Materials:

  • The recording will be posted by early January.
  • Summary notes (Google Doc)

Description: The demand for accessible resource sharing—including Interlibrary Loan (ILL), course reserves, and document delivery—can often feel overwhelming. This session will provide academic library staff with practical tools and scalable methods for building accessibility into scanning and fulfillment workflows. Attendees will learn the direct impact that quality tools and practiced accessible design skills have on the speed and efficacy of digital accessibility remediation workflows. The core of the session will focus on remediation strategies and delivery methods, contrasting a PDF-first approach with the use of emerging technologies like Generative AI for HTML conversion.

Objectives:

  • Understand the impact of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) quality and practiced accessible design skills on remediation efficiency—especially for complex or STEM content.
  • Learn the necessity of using professional PDF editing software to properly validate essential accessibility features, such as properties, reading order, alternative text, and tag structure.
  • Explore the emerging role of Generative AI to convert flat scans to more accessible and transferable formats, such as HTML with heading structure and linked tables of contents.

Speaker Bio: Michele Bromley, CPWA, ADS, is a digital accessibility and inclusivity specialist, currently supporting the Office of Information Technology at Portland State University as the manager of the Digital Accessibility and Content team. Michele has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in English from Oregon State University, which laid the foundation for her focus on accessible, inclusive, and usable content management. Over the years, Michele has held various roles, including Business and Professional Writing Instructor, Alternative Formats Coordinator, Adaptive Technology Specialist, and IT Accessibility Coordinator. Her primary areas of expertise are project and change management, enterprise service management, and accessible digital procurement, design, validation, remediation, and incident response. She has presented on these and similar topics for the national Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD), EDUCAUSE, Gender Advocacy and Inclusion Network (GAIN) in Higher Education, and the NorthWest Academic Computing Consortium (NWACC).

Preparing for and Meeting the New Web Content Accessibility Regulations

Speaker: Ken Nakata, Principal, Converge Accessibility

Date: December 10, 2025, 1:00pm-2:00pm Pacific

Recording & Materials:

  • The recording will be posted by early January.
  • Summary notes (Google Doc)

Description: This webinar will offer a practical roadmap for academic libraries to comply with the new ADA Title II and HHS Section 504 digital accessibility regulations. We’ll start with a high-level description of what the new regulations require and when organizations need to comply. Then, we’ll discuss how to develop a high-level Digital Accessibility Plan that separates technology categories—such as web applications versus PDFs—and outlines tailored strategies for each. We’ll explore how to assess existing applications, prioritize efforts based on legal and operational risk, and distinguish between vendor-created and internally generated barriers. Next, we’ll introduce a simple risk matrix to integrate accessibility into acquisitions and procurement decisions early and consistently. Finally, we’ll present a document accessibility flowchart to clarify staff roles, define expectations, and streamline the creation of accessible new content. Participants will leave with a clear roadmap for getting started and building internal momentum—grounded in defined responsibilities, actionable tools, and scalable processes.

Objectives:

  • Recognize compliance guidelines for the new web content accessibility web regulations
  • Determine steps to create a digital accessibility plan
  • Identify tools and strategies to build sustainable, scalable digital accessibility programs

Speaker Bio: Ken Nakata is a technology-focused civil rights attorney. His work focuses on web accessibility from both a legal and technical perspective. He also helps organizations manage the change towards accessibility in all aspects—including crafting policies, developing stakeholder ownership, and forging awareness and commitment to the legal and business case supporting accessibility. Ken worked for twelve years as a Senior Trial Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice. He has argued on behalf of the United States government many times before the federal courts and has helped shape the government’s policies for the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. In addition to litigation, he also helped develop many of the Department’s policies, including Accessibility of State and Local Government Websites to People with Disabilities and which reflects the Department’s current view towards ADA compliance for state and local government websites. Ken is a frequent speaker on both law and technology and is equally adept at conducting one-on-one workshops with programmers and developers as well as explaining law and policy to large audiences. He is a Founding and former Board Member of the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP). Ken is admitted to the bars of New York, Washington, and the District of Columbia and is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He also received his undergraduate degree in mathematics from the Johns Hopkins University. He is also certified as a privacy professional with the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Principals (CPACP) with the IAAP, and a Sun Certified Programmer for the Java 2 Platform.

Now is the Time: Guidance for Enhancing Web and App Accessibility for Special Collections and Archival Materials

Speaker: Victoria Van Hyning, Assistant Professor of Library Innovation, University of Maryland; co-founder Center for Archival Futures, former Director (2023-2025); member Maryland Initiative for Digital Accessibility

Date: January 20, 2025, 11:00am-12:00pm Pacific

Online Webinar: Registration is open to Alliance members, affiliate participants, and staff at academic libraries in Oregon, Idaho, and Washington
(Unsure if you’re an affiliate participant? See details above.)

Recording: This webinar will be recorded.

Description: This webinar will begin with a brief overview of the “Archived Web Content” exception in the new ADA Title II Web and App Accessibility regulations, and offer reflections on what this might mean for the accessibility of digitized special collections and archival materials such as images of rare books, manuscripts, photographs, documents. As a group we will explore crowdsourcing and AI methods for generating descriptions, transcriptions, and translations of rare and unique materials such as manuscripts, archival documents, and photographs. The goal of the webinar is to indicate potential remediation pathways and methods of public engagement that institutions can undertake to enhance the accessibility of their collections.

Objectives:

  • The goal of this webinar is to empower participants to make digitized special collections accessible, by introducing you to two potential remediation methods (crowdsourcing and AI) and appropriate tools.
  • Participants will gain some understanding of how to balance the use of human and automated methods for enhancing the accessibility of special collections and archives.

Speaker Bio: Victoria Van Hyning is the Assistant Professor of Library Innovation at University of Maryland, College of Information, and co-founder and former Director of the Center for Archival Futures (CAFe). She holds an MSt in Medieval English Language and Literature (Oxford) and doctorate in English literature (Sheffield). She previously worked on the crowdsourcing platform Zooniverse.org at Oxford University and By The People at the Library of Congress. Her current research focuses on the accessibility of special collections and cultural heritage for people who are blind or have low vision. She led Crowdsourced Data: Accuracy, Accessibility, Authority (CDAAA) a three year early career grant funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (2022-2025), and ‘Enhancing Accessibility of Visual Cultural Heritage through Participatory Design’ a project undertaken in partnership with colleagues at UMD, the Library of Congress, and National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled. She held a fellowship in Oxford at the Bodleian Library as a Gale North America Digital Humanities Fellow in autumn 2025, to explore the accessibility of Digital Bodleian, working with blind and low vision stakeholders and sighted cultural heritage experts on potential future designs for the platform. She teamed up with colleagues through the Accessibility Assembly of the ALA in 2024-2025 to create new guidelines for GLAM practitioners to implement accessible web and app-based content before the scheduled Title II Web and App Accessibility changes come into effect in 2026 and 2027.

Licensing Born-Digital E-Resources: Title II Compliance

Speaker: Samantha Teremi, Licensing Librarian, University of California, Berkeley

Date: January 29, 2025, 2:00pm-3:00pm Pacific

Online Webinar: Registration is open to Alliance members, affiliate participants, and staff at academic libraries in Oregon, Idaho, and Washington
(Unsure if you’re an affiliate participant? See details above.)

Recording: This webinar will be recorded.

Description: New accessibility regulations per Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act have created a large impact on the way libraries approach licensing “born-digital” electronic resources. This webinar will explain the legal requirements of Title II and subsequent implications for public entities, as well as provide example contract language regarding accessibility and negotiation strategies to help ensure that institutions are able to meet the April 2026 deadline.

Objectives:

  • Review relevant accessibility laws and standards in the United States, with a special emphasis on new Title II requirements for public entities
  • Examine sample accessibility warranty and indemnification contract language
  • Discuss negotiation strategies for effectively licensing “born-digital” e-resources

Speaker Bio: Samantha Teremi is the Licensing Librarian at the University of California, Berkeley where she negotiates contracts for all of the library’s licensed electronic resources. She frequently writes about accessibility and contractually preserving AI usage and training rights, and recently co-authored an open access book published through the Association of Research Libraries, called “E-Resource Licensing Explained: An A-Z Licensing Guidebook for Libraries.”

Finding the Balance: Vetting Accessibility During Technology Purchasing and Use Decisions

Speaker: Rob Carr, Strategic Accessibility Coordinator, WebAIM

Date: February 17, 2026, 10:00am-11:00am Pacific

Online Webinar: Registration will be open to Alliance members, affiliate participants, and staff at academic libraries in Oregon, Idaho, and Washington
(Unsure if you’re an affiliate participant? See details above.)

Recording: This webinar will be recorded.

Description: Our reliance on third-party, vendor-provided web-based tools is as high as ever. When we use these to offer programs, services, and activities, it is up to us to account for accessibility in our decision-making. In this session, we will discuss how to use several methods and tools to efficiently collect the information we need to fulfill our obligation. The session will focus on integrating accessibility into commonly used procurement tools and processes, and on collecting information about functional accessibility from candidate vendors. We will focus on shifting as much of the work as possible to vendors and discuss various alternatives to determine how accessible a given product is in practice.  Leave with a larger procurement toolbox and insight informed by first-person experience.

Objectives:

  • Identify and discuss three tools to use to vet candidate products for accessibility.
  • Specify at least three areas to integrate accessibility into existing procurement documentation.
  • Detail at least three key questions to pose to candidate vendors across the procurement process

Speaker Bio: Rob Carr is the Strategic Accessibility Coordinator at WebAIM. Rob has been in the digital accessibility space since 2010. He has spent loads of time training, consulting, and learning about digital accessibility topics, large and small. Rob has worked with hundreds of individuals and dozens of organizations on everything from making a single PDF accessible to integrating accessibility into organizations’ digital strategies. At WebAIM, he leads its strategic training and consultation, assists with technical training and consultation, and works as part of its renowned accessibility evaluation team. Rob presents at national conferences, organizes WebAIM’s annual online conference, and tries to be more active on LinkedIn.