‘May Be a Picture of a Dog and a Book’: The Inaccessibility of Public Library Social Media Feeds

The year 2020 saw the COVID-19 pandemic have a dramatic impact on life across the globe with all institutions having to react to changing circumstances. Public libraries were not exempt from this and found themselves needing to reconsider how they provided services during this time. A growing body of literature suggests that previous behaviour patterns were interrupted during the pandemic, with changes seen in the use of public library resources, and particularly greater use of digital. Although the publishing industry indicates an increase in audiobook use, there is limited research focussed specifically on library settings. This article investigates the provision and promotion of audiobooks in public libraries in England and Wales during the pandemic with a view to understanding both the changes seen in this area and to identify any learnings from this time that can be of benefit to public libraries in the future. A mixed methods research approach explored the views of public librarians on a variety of topics associated with audiobook usage, as well as investigating the impact and style of promotion activities on social media. Some surprising findings arose, including how limitations related to social media promotion of audiobooks were indicative of wider issues, and how questions around the future of audiobooks can shed light on what may be needed in the public library of tomorrow.

show abstract

Increased Usage of Alt Text Is Required Across Ontario Public Library Social Media Feeds to Increase the Accessibility of Content

King

2024

EBLIP

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A Review of: Hill, H., & Oswald, K. (2023). “May be a picture of a dog and a book”: The inaccessibility of public libraries’ social media feeds. Partnership, 18(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.21083/partnership.v18i1.7008 Objective – The research project sought to explore how accessible the social media feeds of Ontario public libraries are, particularly the use of alt text for images, by assessing the usage of alt text and by making recommendations for appropriate use within social media posts. Design – Collection of social media posts and computer-assisted textual analysis of visual media content. Setting – 76 public libraries and 9 public library systems in Ontario, Canada. Subjects – Approximately 900 Ontario public library social media posts from Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Methods – A random number generator sampling of 30 libraries per platform from the relevant social media accounts from a spreadsheet created using Ontario Public Library Statistics (OPLS) data of social media usage from the included libraries was initially created capturing 76 individual libraries. Then the researchers performed targeted sampling of posts from the nine library systems serving over 250,000 residents each. Researchers identified the 10 most recent posts from each included platform feed, and then undertook textual analysis for the presence of alt text with each post using two Mozilla Firefox browser extensions that determine the presence of alt text. Main Results – Of the 76 unique libraries chosen by the random sampling and the nine library systems that serve populations over 250,000, only two regularly used alt text and five had at least one instance of alt text. Only Toronto Public Library regularly included alt text across each of the three social media platforms analyzed by the study. The study also initially aimed to assess the quality of alt text used by public libraries in social media posts. However, due to the lack of alt text use across the sample, this was not possible at the scale initially aimed for, although a small number of examples are analyzed in the findings. Conclusion – The initial goal of analyzing the alt text to make recommendations for improved usage could not be realized due to the surprising lack of inclusion of any alt text across the sampled posts. This lack of any alt text can prevent some disabled users from engaging with content and information, leading to an inequitable experience. Public libraries should consider how accessible their engagement with users is and seek to improve the accessibility of social media posts.

show abstract

‘May Be a Picture of a Dog and a Book’: The Inaccessibility of Public Library Social Media Feeds

Cited by 3 publications

References 27 publications

Community

Community

Learning from audiobook usage in public libraries during the COVID-19 pandemic

Increased Usage of Alt Text Is Required Across Ontario Public Library Social Media Feeds to Increase the Accessibility of Content

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About