An analysis of voluntary product accessibility templates (VPATs)

Abstract

It is difficult for libraries to keep track of resource accessibility when libraries often subscribe to thousands of resources. One means for recording a resource’s accessibility is the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT). Completed by the product vendor, a VPAT documents whether the resource does or does not support accessibility over a wide range of criteria. For the past few years, Texas A&M University (TAMU) Libraries have been gathering VPATs as a way to track accessibility across its electronic resources. What follows is an analysis of the collection of VPATs that the TAMU Libraries have gathered.