Accessibility statement for Charting the Nation
Website accessibility statement inline with Public Sector Body (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018
This accessibility statement applies to:
http://www.chartingthenation.lib.ed.ac.uk/
This website is run by the Library and University Collections Directorate which is part of Information Services Group at the University of Edinburgh. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this application. For example, that means you should be able to:
We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand. However, some of our content is technical, and we use technical terms where there is no easier wording we could use without changing what the text means.
AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability. This is an external site with suggestions to make your computer more accessible:
AbilityNet - My Computer My Way
With a few simple steps you can customise the appearance of our website using your browser settings to make it easier to read and navigate:
Additional information on how to customise our website appearance
If you are a member of University staff or a student, you can use the free SensusAccess accessible document conversion service:
We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:
If you need information on this website in a different format, including accessible PDF, large print, audio recording or braille:
We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days.
We are always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page, or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact:
We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) directly:
Contact details for the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS)
The government has produced information on how to report accessibility issues:
Reporting an accessibility problem on a public sector website
British Sign Language service
Contact Scotland BSL runs a service for British Sign Language users and all of Scotland’s public bodies using video relay. This enables sign language users to contact public bodies and vice versa. The service operates from 8.00am to 12.00am, 7 days a week.
Contact Scotland BSL service details.
The University of Edinburgh is committed to making its websites and applications accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.
The full guidelines are available at:
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.
The following items to not comply with the WCAG 2.2 AA success criteria:
We aim to improve our websites accessibility on a regular and continuous basis. See the section below ('What we're doing to improve accessibility') on how we are improving our site accessibility.
We are working towards solving these problems and expect several improvements by February 2025. The site is fully within our control
We are not currently claiming that any accessibility problems would be a disproportionate burden to fix.
Our site includes reproductions of items in heritage collections that cannot be made fully accessible because doing so would either damage the item or it is not possible to extract the text from the manuscripts. These items are exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations such as excerpts from ancient anatomy manuals.
We will continue to address and make adequate improvements to the accessibility issues highlighted. Unless specified otherwise, a complete solution or significant improvement will be in place by February 2025.
While we are in the process of resolving these accessibility issues we will ensure reasonable adjustments are in place to make sure no user is disadvantaged. As changes are made, we will continue to review accessibility and retest the accessibility of this website.
This statement was prepared on 20th September 2021. It was last reviewed on 26th March 2024.
The website was last tested in January 2024. The testing was carried out by Library and University Collections, Information Services Group at the University of Edinburgh using both automated and manual methods. The site was tested on a PC, primarily using Microsoft Edge alongside Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.
Recent world-wide usage levels survey for different screen readers and browsers shows that Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge are increasing in popularity and Google Chrome is now the favoured browser for screen readers:
WebAIM: Screen Reader User Survey
The aforementioned three browsers have been used in certain questions for reasons of breadth and variety.
We ran automated testing using WAVE WebAIM and then manual testing that included:
Since the first statement we have undertaken extensive manual testing involved with a range of assistive software to understand better the accessibility issues around the website.