Our commitment to accessibility
Access is central to our mission at the University of London Press to open up humanities research. As well as publishing open access editions of the majority of our books, we are committed to ensuring that all our books are accessible to as many readers as possible. We are striving to embed accessibility into all aspects of our publishing processes, publications, communications, the training sessions and resources we offer, and all other services we provide for our readers, authors, collaborators and the humanities research community at large.
This accessibility statement has been independently verified by ASPIRE and achieved a gold-rated, 100% ASPIRE score for the quality of the information provided to users.
We are pleased to be a signatory to the Publishing Accessibility Action Group UK (PAAG) Accessible Publishing Charter.
We are working towards compliance with the following accessibility standards and legislation for our content and user interfaces:
We have completed a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) to report on the accessibility of our EPUB editions. Read our Accessibility Conformance Report.
The accessibility of our publications
Formats
To date, 56% of our published books (201 titles) have been released as ebooks in EPUB (EPUB3), PDF and/or HTML formats alongside print editions. All of our new frontlist books are published in one or more of these formats.
EPUB
As of November 2024, all new titles are published with an accessible EPUB edition. The EPUB versions of our ebooks are published in EPUB3 format in line with accessibility best practice, and this is the primary accessible format for our titles, meeting W3C EPUB Accessibility 1.1 and WCAG 2.2 Level AA standards. They include support for non-visual reading and visual adjustments, navigational features and other accessibility features such as ARIA roles, page breaks and semantic structure. Navigational features include page lists, reading order, table of contents and heading levels, indexes, as well as break markers corresponding to the static editions of the book. Tables of contents, cross-references and indexes are reciprocally linked. They are Digital Rights Management (DRM)-free, reflowable and enabled for magnification and customisation available in the user’s given reading system.
We are currently undertaking a large-scale project to remediate and produce new EPUB versions of older backlist titles that don’t currently have them. 34 EPUB editions were released in May 2025 in this project’s first phase, and 56 in the project’s second phase in August–November 2025. Further releases are planned on an ongoing basis from 2026.
Our EPUBs are distributed via the Ingram Content Group’s CoreSource platform. Accessibility information can be accessed via Ingram’s Website Accessibility Statement.
All of our open access titles are published in PDF format. The link to the PDF can be accessed via the book’s webpage on the University of London Press website and, as many web browsers have built-in PDF viewers, a separate PDF reader application may not be required to access the book. If the browser will not open the PDF or you require more advanced accessibility features, then we would recommend downloading and installing a free PDF reader application such as Adobe Acrobat Reader. Detailed guidelines on using Adobe’s accessibility features are available on their website: Accessibility features.
Open access PDF editions of our books are also available via a number of third-party platforms such as JSTOR, OAPEN and Thoth.
Our PDFs are produced in line with the latest accessibility standards, including bookmarks, tags, navigational aids, metadata and alternative text descriptions for images. They are also DRM-free.
Previously published PDF editions have historically not been produced to this high level of accessibility. Only a small number of our PDF editions published before November 2024 have alternative text for the images; PDF editions published before 2023 are unlikely to be tagged, hyperlinked or bookmarked. Our roadmap details our plans and timeframe to fix these issues.
HTML
The majority of our open access books are available in HTML format via the University of London Press’s instance of the Manifold platform. The open access editions of all new frontlist open access books are published in HTML as well as in PDF format. The platform supports reflowable text (with zoom up to 500%) and includes customisation options such as text resizing (200%) and text adjustment (serif/sans serif fonts and light/dark colour modes). All platform elements have adequate colour contrast and text size, and are compatible with screen readers and use of keyboard navigation. It may not always be possible for screen-reader users to access the full annotation features that the platform offers and the Manifold team is working to address this. You can find detailed information on Manifold’s accessibility approach, the accessibility features of the platform, and their ongoing work to resolve existing issues on Manifold’s Accessibility page.
Image descriptions (alternative text/alt text)
Alt text is a short textual description of the illustration that is embedded digitally into the image for use in the ebook editions, and is used by assistive technologies (such as screen readers) to convey the type and content of the image to readers with visual impairments. We introduced alt text into our standard publishing workflow in May 2024 and, since November 2024, all new frontlist books in all published digital formats include alt text for images and long descriptions where necessary for more complex illustrations. Authors submit alt text as part of their final manuscript submission, which our editorial team then checks for quality assurance. We provide guidelines for authors on writing alt text in our Author Pack.
For our published backlist titles, all EPUB editions (where available) contain alt text. We are carrying out ongoing work to add alt text to images in the HTML and PDF editions of our backlist titles published prior to November 2024.
Supplementary and multimedia materials
Selected open access titles on our instance of the Manifold platform include a range of supplementary and multimedia materials. These may take the form of embedded or downloadable text, image or audiovisual files, links to resources on external websites, or resources that are hosted on external websites but are pulled into the book’s pages on our Manifold site using iframes. We ensure that any supplementary or multimedia materials directly hosted by us on the Manifold site have been prepared to the latest accessibility standards, the process and features of which may differ depending on the type of file or resource. Although we provide authors with accessibility guidance when selecting external resources, we cannot always guarantee the accessibility of any external websites or materials that are linked to or pulled into our platform from external sites.
Metadata
We distribute publication accessibility metadata as part of the files themselves and also in ONIX files that are sent to various suppliers and vendors in the ebooks supply chain. We display this accessibility metadata on our website using W3C guidelines and trust that recipients of our data do the same.
The metadata in our EPUB files is up to date and follows industry best practice and guidance. The metadata in our freely-available PDF files is less consistent and is being reviewed as part of our accessibility roadmap.
University of London Press website
Our website accessibility statement can be found on our Website accessibility page.
Accessible format requests
Making a request
If you require a more accessible option than the published formats available, please send a request to uolp.accessibility@london.ac.uk. We will aim to supply a file that can be used by you or your local alternative format team to create a more accessible version within 5 business days.
Where a more suitable solution would be for us to publish a new, more accessible edition of a book (for example in EPUB format or involving the creation of alt text) we will endeavour to do so, but our turnaround times will be longer depending on the nature of the request.
We are aware that the source files for a number of our older published books are not available in a more readily accessible format or are missing altogether. Where this applies, we will work with you to offer a suitable solution on a case-by-case basis, and inform you as soon as possible if we are unable to fulfil your request.
File provision and licensing
The files we provide will be DRM-free to enable copying and printing.
Beyond the copyright exception that enables us to provide copies of our book files freely for the creation of accessible versions, the copyright of our books belongs to the authors. We therefore request that you observe international copyright law, and the conditions of the relevant Creative Commons licence for our open access books, when using the files we provide. Files will be provided to the person requesting them (or an organisation acting on their behalf) for the sole purpose of creating an accessible format for their personal use. No unnecessary changes may be made to the copy of the work and it may not be transferred to another person without permission from UoL Press or used commercially.
Partnerships
Through our partnership with the open metadata management and dissemination platform Thoth, our open access books will be distributed via RNIB Bookshare. Supplying our ebooks through Bookshare US is also part of our roadmap.
Embedding accessibility
Testing
A third-party audit of our main priority area, open access books, was carried out in summer 2024 to give us a picture of the state of our backlist ebook files and the work that would be required to fix them. The supplier used proprietary tools based on open-source software (PAC and Ace by DAISY) to validate and check the accessibility compliance of 72 EPUB files and 99 PDFs. Work is ongoing to audit the rest of our backlist files.
All our books now go through detailed accessibility checks in production, both with external suppliers and in-house. Our suppliers are Benetech-certified, and we currently self-certify the compliance of our files.
This list is not exhaustive, but the checks that we carry out on our ebook files include:
- File validation (EPUBCheck)
- Accessibility error reporting (Ace by DAISY and Adobe Acrobat)
- Metadata checks
- Content/structure review
- Text formatting
- Artwork
- E-reader compatibility
- Cross-reference checks
- Link checks
- Screen reader tests
Roadmap
| Item | Description | Target timeframe |
| EPUB release | Publication of EPUB editions for older backlist titles in phases: Phase 1: 34 titles Phase 2: 56 titles Phase 3: 50 titles Ongoing phased releases as necessary | Spring 2025 – Complete Autumn 2025 – Complete Autumn 2026 From 2027 onwards |
| Language shift tags | Published EPUBs tagged for language shifts where currently missing (WCAG 2.2 success criterion 3.1.2 – Level AA) | Autumn 2025 – Complete |
| Website accessibility improvements | Details of improvements required are outlined on our Website accessibility page | On an ongoing basis as part of our annual website development cycle |
| Alt text for backlist HTML editions | Addition of alt text to the images in HTML editions of OA titles on Manifold platform where missing | Work to be scoped in Autumn 2026 |
| Bookshare US distribution | Set up a partnership agreement with Bookshare US for the distribution of our EPUBs | Winter 2026 |
| Remediation of backlist PDF editions | Remediation of PDF editions published prior to 2023 to bring them in line with current accessibility standards | Work to be scoped in Spring 2027 |
Our approach to inclusive publishing
As well as our ongoing work to ensure that our books and website are as accessible as possible, we are committed to integrating digital inclusion into all parts of our publishing operations, content design and wider activities. Accessibility is a shared responsibility of every member of our team, with editorial, production and sales and marketing staff responsible for accessibility in their specific areas of the publishing workflow. New staff receive relevant accessibility training and a designated accessibility champion in our team helps to coordinate our accessibility work. We also work actively with our partners including production suppliers, freelance designers, vendors and others to ensure as far as possible the same high accessibility standards and goals across the publishing supply chain for our books.
We set up an accessibility working group in 2024, which meets quarterly to monitor progress against our documented roadmap and to share accessibility best practice and information. Members of our team also participate in a number of external accessibility initiatives including the EvenUP Accessibility Working Group and PAAG membership as well as relevant conference and workshop attendance as sources of training, up-to-date information on accessibility developments and connection with the wider accessibility community.
Resources
Helpful accessibility-related guidelines and resources include:
Get in touch
We recognise that improving the accessibility of our books and processes is an ongoing process and that we still have more work to do. We welcome any questions and feedback that you have – please contact uolp.accessibility@london.ac.uk.
This statement was prepared on 29 May 2025. It was last updated on 1 June 2026.