Evidence Summary
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
Reviewed by:
Maria King
Subject Librarian
Edinburgh Napier University Library
Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
Email: m.king2@napier.ac.uk
Received: 30 Oct. 2023 Accepted:
24 Jan. 2024
2024 King.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons‐Attribution‐Noncommercial‐Share Alike License 4.0
International (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly attributed, not used for commercial
purposes, and, if transformed, the resulting work is redistributed under the
same or similar license to this one.
DOI: 10.18438/eblip30470
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.
As
this study notes, most research on the accessibility of library online content
relates to webpage content rather than social media accounts, with Gibson et
al. (2021) finding that 44.89% of research papers on LIS and disability focus
on webpage accessibility. Only Brunskill and Gilbert (2023) have explored the
accessibility of library social media accounts beyond Hill and Oswald’s study.
Research from Koulouris et al. (2020) found that libraries with social media
accounts tend to be very active, reiterating the recommendations of Hill and
Oswald’s study that social media is an important engagement and information
tool for public libraries and that the accessibility of the content needs more
consideration.
This
study has been critically appraised using the EBL critical appraisal checklist
(Glynn, 2006), with an overall validity score of 81%. The study selected the
main social media accounts used by Ontario public libraries and ensured that
the initial population sample included all available social media account data.
Random sampling has been used which can limit researcher selection bias. This
method has reduced the number of unique libraries included in the final sample,
although the researchers have attempted to offset this limitation by also
including targeted sampling of the largest library systems.
In
terms of the research questions, whilst the presence of alt text can be a
precise answer, analysis of the quality of the alt text could be subject to
researcher opinion and judgement. The researchers clearly explained the data
collection methods for the presence of alt text, but there are no details on
how the analysis of the text itself was to be done. Perhaps the researchers did
not include this information as they were unable to conduct the analysis.
The
study data on the presence of alt text is very specific to Ontario public
libraries, so we cannot presume these findings correlate with other public
library usage of alt text. However, it does provide useful and original case
study data that other public libraries should be taking into consideration for
their own use of alt text. The article also highlights important impacts of the
lack of alt text or the use of poor alt text, giving useful guidance on
creating alt text, which is externally valid to any library. The article
references guidance such as Kovac (2018) which staff in libraries can put into
practice when creating social media content.
Brunskill,
A., & Gilbert, E. (2023). Academic libraries’ social media posts related to
disabilities: A review of libraries’ tweets in terms of their content and
accessibility. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 49(3),
Article 102684. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2023.102684
Gibson,
A., Bowen, K., & Hanson, D. (2021, February 24). We need to talk about how
we talk about disability: a critical quasi-systematic review. In The Library
With The Lead Pipe. https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2021/disability/
Glynn,
L. (2006). A critical appraisal tool for library and information research. Library
Hi Tech, 24(3), 387–399. https://doi.org/10.1108/07378830610692154
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
Koulouris,
A., Vraimaki, E., & Koloniari, M. (2021). COVID-19 and library social media
use. Reference Services Review, 49(1), 19–38. https://doi.org/10.1108/RSR-06-2020-0044
Kovac,
L. (2018, June 11). Ways to make your website more accessible.
Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. https://www.aoda.ca/ways-to-make-your-website-more-accessible/