Accessibility Statement for NCLC Digital Library

This is an accessibility statement from the National Consumer Law Center on the NCLC Digital Library.

Measures to Support Accessibility

The National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) takes the following measures to ensure accessibility of the NCLC Digital Library website:

  • Integrate accessibility throughout our internal policies and development practices.
  • Assign clear accessibility goals and responsibilities across teams.
  • Employ formal accessibility quality assurance methods.
  • Engage Zenyth, an independent accessibility consulting firm, to conduct a comprehensive accessibility audit and provide ongoing oversight toward achieving conformance with recognized standards.

Conformance Status

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) define requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. They define three levels of conformance: Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA.

The NCLC Digital Library website is currently partially conformant with WCAG 2.2 Level AA. Partially conformant means that some parts of the content do not fully conform to the accessibility standard.

A comprehensive accessibility audit of the NCLC Digital Library has been completed by Zenyth, a digital accessibility consulting firm specializing in comprehensive evaluation, design, and remediation oversight. Remediation is currently underway, covering both the website and the library's downloadable documents. The NCLC Digital Library is committed to achieving full conformance with WCAG 2.2 Level AA by April 26, 2027, including the remediation of all non-exempt PDFs and other downloadable documents.

Remediation Approach

Remediation is being carried out in prioritized rounds rather than all at once, so that the changes reaching the highest number of readers are delivered first.

For the website, defects are ranked by severity and by how widely they repeat across the site. Issues that originate in a shared template or script are corrected once at that level, so a single fix resolves the issue on every page where it appears. Each completed round is re-tested against the original findings to confirm the corrections hold before the next round begins.

For documents, the library is being remediated collection by collection, beginning with the most heavily used materials. Each remediated document is tagged and validated to PDF/UA (ISO 14289-1) and WCAG 2.1 Level AA. A limited number of documents are older archival materials that exist only as scanned images of printed pages, or are not owned by NCLC and cannot be recreated. For these, we will supply the content in an alternative format on request.

Accessibility Conformance Reports

Independent Accessibility Conformance Reports prepared by Zenyth record the results of the evaluation and are updated as remediation progresses:

Feedback

We welcome your feedback on the accessibility of the NCLC Digital Library website. Please let us know if you encounter accessibility barriers:

  • Phone: (617) 542-9595
  • Email: [email protected]
  • Mailing Address: 7 Winthrop Square, 4th Floor, Boston MA 02110

We aim to respond to accessibility-related feedback within 2-3 business days.

Compatibility with Browsers and Assistive Technology

The NCLC Digital Library website is designed to be compatible with the following assistive technologies:

  • Firefox with NVDA on Windows
  • Edge with JAWS on Windows
  • Chrome with TalkBack on Android
  • Safari with VoiceOver on macOS
  • Safari with VoiceOver on iOS

Technical Specifications

Accessibility of the NCLC Digital Library website relies on the following technologies to work with your web browser and assistive technologies:

  • HTML
  • CSS
  • JavaScript
  • WAI-ARIA
  • Tagged PDF, conforming to PDF/UA (ISO 14289-1), for remediated downloadable documents

These technologies are essential for ensuring compatibility with current accessibility standards.

Assessment Approach

The accessibility of the NCLC Digital Library website is being assessed by Zenyth through the following approaches:

  • Independent expert evaluation
  • Manual and automated accessibility testing
  • Screen reader and keyboard-only usability testing
  • Ongoing remediation oversight and verification

Date

This statement was last reviewed and updated on July 30, 2026. We review it whenever a remediation round is completed or a conformance report is reissued.