Evaluation on Academic Libraries’ Websites of the Autonomous State Universities: The Minimum Level of Success and Failure Criteria

Abstract

The importance of Internet access in the digital era cannot be overstated. While the digital revolution has an impact on online services and resources, the website plays a valuable tool in library services. Users can access many useful features when visiting the library without physical presence. The purposes of libraries in academic institutions are not different. Libraries disseminate information and media within the internal databases and connect users to other external sources and show the results to all academic persons and general interests. While traditional library remains in the services, the additional supports have been addressed to ensure that all users have equal access. Not only the ordinary persons can make use of the library, but also the people with disabilities are the stakeholder. This research examined web accessibility compliance to WCAG 2.0 level A of the 23 Thai academic libraries on most common pages, which were home, book loan service information, and e-databases pages. Each webpage was assessed using multiple tools and manual check and made a comparison of the success criteria with 25 checkpoints. The research approach was carried out following the Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology. The finding results were found that people with disabilities could have a barrier to access to materials available on the academic libraries’ websites. Non-text content was the most critical barrier. While AChecker could identify the most violation, an additional approach to increase the accuracy is recommended. Manual check also needs a professional person to ensure accurate and robust judgment for better web accessibility.