Thanks to support from the Canada Book Fund’s Accessible Digital Books Initiative, the LPG completed a second round of its Accessible Digital Books creation and conversion project. The result? The addition of 132 titles joining our existing 600+ title ebooks for Everyone collection, ensuring even more works of Canadian literature are accessible to all Canadian readers.

Working with assistive reading technologies, ebook accessibility features include scalable text, alternative text for images, and a navigable table of contents. It is estimated that less than 5 percent of books published each year are accessible to readers with print disabilities. The hard work undertaken by LPG participating member publishers, project partners at eBOUND Canada, and conversion partners Newgen and Laura Brady means that more entertaining, engaging, and critical cultural work is available to a wider reading public.

The expanded ebooks for Everyone collection will be available to borrow via the National Network for Equitable Library Service (NNELS) and the Centre for Equitable Library Access (CELA). Librarians and educators interested in acquiring books in the collection should ask their sales representatives or reach out to the LPG for assistance. The books are also available for sale to readers via All Lit Up and through participating publisher websites.

Moreover, the in-house capacity for creating, testing, and releasing accessible epubs has increased across participating LPG members. Three well-attended training sessions on accessible ebook QA and metadata were hosted by LPG and eBOUND Canada. Over 20 LPG members are Benetech-certified for creating accessible epubs, as well.

“We were thrilled to see CBF’s investment in this critical program, which enabled Canadian literary publishers to create and market more accessible ebooks,” said Laura Rock Gaughan, executive director of the LPG. “Our member publishers have increased their capacity for producing accessible formats, which will benefit all readers. We know the demand from librarians and educators for accessible formats continues to be high. Now, we hope for new public investment to support this activity going forward, given the high costs involved.”

A social media marketing and influencer campaign conducted with the help of ZG Stories concluded earlier this summer, resulting in nearly 1.7 million impressions and plenty of positive user engagement.

We thank our funders at the Department of Canadian Heritage, through the Canada Book Fund, for their necessary support in this important initiative. Browse and buy the ebooks for Everyone collection via All Lit Up.