Assessing Archival Accessibility and Information Access for Disabled Users

Abstract

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights gives individuals the freedom of opinion and expression, which includes the right to information access. To assess the practical attainability of this right for Disabled users, I examined the accessibility of 55 archives' online record items using discoverability and usability to guide my analysis. Access challenges arose in both categories, and they proved to be useful ways of thinking about accessibility in archives. Ultimately, they can help guide archivists' thinking within the broad areas of accessibility and information access, and they can help archivists identify and address accessibility barriers as they encounter them.