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5 LibGuides

Susanna Galbraith

Overview

Springshare’s LibGuides are a popular tool for libraries to create and publish web content that showcase and curate subject, course, and topic specific resources. These websites have evolved from what was originally called a pathfinder. Pathfinders are intended to be a launch point for research on a particular topic, via the collection of select materials available in a particular institution on that topic. These websites can include accessibility barriers that are common to all web content.

Description of library teaching practice

LibGuides are often used alongside library and information teaching sessions to guide learners in selecting resources and serve as a supplementary learning tool for learners to reference beyond the synchronous session. Non-accessible websites can create barriers for persons with auditory, cognitive, learning, physical, speech, and visual disabilities. Common web accessibility barriers (World Wide Web Consortium, 2025) that are most relevant to LibGuides for these persons include:

  • cognitive and learning disabilities: complex language and inconsistent layout
  • physical: poor keyboard navigation, complex navigation
  • visual: lack of alt-text for images, page structure issues, complex navigation, keyboard navigation, poor colour contrast

These barriers can be prevented by those who administer, create, and maintain content in LibGuides. For administrators, Springshare’s LibGuides software is highly customizable, and the functionality is either accessible out-of-the-box or can be customized to improve accessibility. Content creators and maintainers also play a significant role in ensuring each guide and the content within them is accessible. In 2018, Stitz & Blundell created a rubric for LibGuides and found most failed web accessibility standards.

Guiding principles

Since LibGuides are websites, the accessibility standards that guide their design are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 or WCAG 2.2. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 are a set of international standards developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities. In Ontario, these standards are enacted through the Accessibility for Ontarians Disabilities Act or AODA. The guidelines within WCAG each have 3 levels, A, AA, and AAA. Level A is the bare minimum, and AAA is a very high standard. The current requirement in Ontario at the time of this writing is Level AA. As such you’ll often see that web accessibility must meet the WCAG 2.2 Level AA criteria. The process for ensuring compliance includes conducting tests using website automated testing tools (see further resources and readings below) combined with manual testing, such as keyboard and screen reader navigation. Note: while Level AA is the legal requirement some of the recommendations below are Level AAA.

Recommendations for accessibility

Below you’ll find recommendations based on the WCAG 2.2 criteria that are most relevant to the common barriers that apply to LibGuides (Chee & Weaver, 2021, Stitz & Blundell, 2018, Hopper, 2021, Skaggs 2016), with links to resources on how to meet them. The WCAG 2.2 criteria do not specify any requirements around font type, so that is not included in the recommendations. There are WCAG requirements for video, but that is outside the scope of this chapter and will not be covered. It’s important to note that many institutions and legal standards still reference WCAG 2.0 and WCAG 2.1. Each version of the guidelines builds on the previous one, meaning that WCAG 2.2 includes and expands upon the criteria established in earlier versions.

Recommendation

Description

WCAG Criterion

Audience

Roles Responsible

Images need to be described for screen readers.

Level A: Non-text content

Persons with visual and physical disabilities

Content creators and maintainers

Headings need to follow H1, H2, etc. for screen readers to follow the sequence of information on the page. This means that boxes (which include heading tags) should be placed in a single column rather than across the page horizontally. Headings within boxes would also need to be in the proper order.

Persons with visual and physical disabilities

Administrators and content creators

Tables need to have headings within the columns for screen readers to follow the information in sequence.

Persons with visual and physical disabilities

Content creators

Tables should be used for tabular data, not layout

Persons with visual and physical disabilities

Content creators

List content should use the list formatting.

Persons with visual and physical disabilities

Content creators

Bold formatting shouldn’t be used in place of the Heading formatting, if it’s a heading.

Persons with visual and physical disabilities

Content creators

Given the option in LibGuides of using Side-Nav or Tab Layout, use Side-Nav.

Persons with visual and physical disabilities

Content/Guide creators

Links provide more information than just “click here”. Also, non-links should not be underlined.

Level A: Link Purpose

Persons with visual and physical disabilities

Content creators

Where colour is used anywhere on the page, ensure the contrast is tested and verified.

Level AA: Contrast

Persons with visual disabilities (colour blindness)

Administrators and content creators

If an image has text, include it in the alt-text, but keep this to a minimum. Try to keep text within the HTML separate from images.

Level AA: Images of Text

Persons with visual disabilities

Content creators

LibGuides out-of-the-box does not have overly visible focus indicators for keyboard navigation. They can be improved with CSS customizations.

Level AA: Focus Visible

Persons with visual and physical  disabilities

Administrators

At a policy or guidelines level try to ensure all content creators are using the Side-Nav Layout. Also, administrators can create templates that allow for consistent content within navigation across guides (eg Home, Find Resources, Get Help).

Persons with cognitive and physical  disabilities

Administrators

Administrators can create re-usable boxes to ensure content creators keep elements of guides consistent. Also re-using links, databases and books can help to ensure consistency.

Persons with cognitive disabilities

Administrators and content creators

Content creators can be careful to ensure guides aren’t too full of extraneous information and try to refrain from using library jargon.

Level AAA: Reading Level

Persons with cognitive disabilities

Content creators

References

Further reading and resources

  • Utah State University & WebAIM. (2025). Wave: Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool. Retrieved February 21, 2025, from https://wave.webaim.org/
  • Utah State University & WebAIM. (2025). WebAIM. Retrieved February 21, 2025, from https://webaim.org/

License

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Accessible Library Teaching Copyright © by McMaster University Libraries is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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