Advancing accessibility across ProQuest content solutions

Accessibility is a core part of how we think about delivering trusted, impactful content to libraries and the learning communities they serve. Across ProQuest content solutions, we are expanding accessibility by focusing on high-impact improvements at scale, partnership with publishers and accessibility leaders, and clear, transparent pathways for addressing complex accessibility needs.

High-Volume Accessibility Improvements At Scale

ProQuest collections span centuries, content types and formats. To meaningfully improve access across this breadth, we invest in accessibility enhancements designed for high-volume application. Sometimes those improvements are built into product development. For example, all new magazine archive solutions are created with accessible PDFs. More often, accessibility features are implemented across platforms, improving many products at once and providing a consistent, predictable user experience.

Current initiatives coming soon to our platforms include:

• • Platform-integrated accessible text generation by-request
    For content not yet available in machine-readable text, OCR workflows help improve access for screen reader users and support broader usability. This capability will extend our “Text only version” feature to the Ebook Central platform and additional collections on the ProQuest academic platform including Historical Newspapers, ProQuest One Education and ProQuest One Psychology collections.
  • Inline image description enhancements
    We are expanding the availability of descriptive text for images — such as charts, figures, and visual materials — to help blind and low-vision users access essential information while preserving scholarly context. This is currently planned for full-text content presented in HTML for various collections including newspapers, historic collections and others.
  • AI-enabled PDF remediation upon-download
    We are developing automated and assisted remediation tools to improve PDF structure, tagging and readability, enabling better navigation and compatibility with assistive technologies. This will be available via a phased approach across products.
  • AI-enabled audio description on the Alexander Street platform
    While the vast majority of our videos have accessible transcripts and captions, we are working to expand availability of audio description for key visual content.

These planned features are the latest in our ongoing effort to improve accessibility at scale. More information about existing accessibility features in individual products on the ProQuest Platform, Ebook Central and other platforms is available in the Accessibility Directory.

Improving Accessibility Through Publisher Collaboration

Accessibility is strongest when it begins at the source. As a large scale content aggregator, we partner with thousands of publishers and content providers delivering materials that span video, digitized archival collections, scholarly journals, ebooks, and other formats. Through ongoing collaboration, we encourage alignment with accessibility guidelines and support improvements at the source.

This collaboration includes:

• • Promoting the delivery of born-accessible files
  • Encouraging consistent structure and metadata
  • Supporting workflows that reduce the need for downstream remediation

By strengthening accessibility at the source, we aim to improve outcomes for users regardless of where they conduct their research and support more sustainable, long-term accessibility improvement across ProQuest collections.

Expanding Access Through Our Partnership With Benetech

Our partnership with Benetech, including access to Bookshare, plays an important role in our broader accessibility ecosystem. Benetech, a nonprofit organization focused on empowering communities with software for social good, is recognized for its leadership in accessible technology solutions. Through this collaboration, eligible users may gain access to alternative formats.

This partnership reflects our approach to accessibility as a network of complementary solutions, helping extend access while recognizing the practical limits of remediating every format within large scale content platforms.

By-Request Workflows For Complex Content

Some accessibility needs require individualized assessment, particularly for highly visual materials, complex mathematical notation, dense historical documents or larger, collection-wide needs. For these scenarios, we offer by-request workflows that allow libraries to raise specific accessibility needs. Requests are evaluated based on:

• • Intended user impact
  • Technical feasibility and content format
  • Scope and volume of requested remediation
  • Publisher or rights considerations

Higher volume requests of multiple titles may require prioritization or phased approaches to ensure that remediation efforts remain effective, sustainable and aligned with user needs.

This model allows us to address complex accessibility requirements thoughtfully and transparently, while balancing quality, scale and available solutions. More information about anticipated timeframes for content remediation by request are provided within individual product accessibility statements, for example the ProQuest Platform Accessibility Statement.

Institutional and User-Uploaded Content

Some of our solutions enable institutional and user content to be shared. For example, dissertations in ETD Administrator are uploaded by universities. Content uploaded by libraries, universities and faculty isn’t within our control, and we encourage accessible content to be provided. To help support our library and university partners, we have several planned enhancements across our software to help ease the delivery of accessible content. We’ve shared some of these accessibility enablers already available in Leganto, the course materials list solution from Ex Libris. More information on how these enablers will be implemented across our products is coming soon.

Our Content Accessibility Approach

ProQuest content collections are extensive, diverse and continually expanding. Our accessibility approach reflects both this reality and the expectations of the academic and library communities we serve. It is grounded in the following principles:

• • Scalable solutions that provide broad benefit across collections
  • Collaboration with publishers, content partners and accessibility leaders
  • Clear pathways for requests when scalable solutions are not sufficient or yet feasible

While not all content can meet every accessibility requirement immediately or in every format, we are committed to transparency, partnership and sustained progress leveraging the latest technical capabilities while ensuring real usability. Our approach prioritizes remediation that delivers the greatest benefit for users.

By combining scalable enhancements with targeted workflows and trusted partnerships, we aim to support inclusive research and learning experiences while responsibly managing the realities of largescale content delivery spanning many decades of digitization, formats and technologies.

If you have questions or feedback on the information shared here, please reach out to us at accessibility@clarivate.com.