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Making our e-books accessible

Our engineering and technology community is both diverse and far reaching, meaning a significant proportion of people accessing and reading our digital products, such as our e-books and publications, may face challenges because of physical or sensory impairments, or neurodivergence.

Over the past 12 months and in line with the newly brought in European Accessibility Act, we’ve been looking at our online catalogue of e-books – both academic and practitioner – to see how we can improve accessibility to ensure everyone has equal access to our titles. This includes the forthcoming edition of flagship product BS 7671 (The Wiring Regulations) and its associated portfolio.

Changes we are making:

  • User friendly reflowable ePub3 format - this supports accessibility features and easy navigation, including zooming in and out.
  • Using proper mark-up – applying semantic tags (like headings, paragraphs and lists) and providing additional context for assistive technologies.
  • Providing alternative text (alt text) – adding descriptive alt text to all meaningful images (charts, photos, diagrams) that convey information. 
  • Improving clarity – incorporating simple language, high-contrast colours, adjustable fonts, clear layouts and a comprehensive table of contents, with links to chapters and sections.
  • Embedding accessibility metadata – to describe the e-book's accessibility features.
  • Testing – we will use screen readers (like VoiceOver) and other assistive technologies and testing tools to optimise the accessibility of academic e-books. 

We sell our academic e-books free from digital rights management on our Digital Library platform, allowing customers flexibility to choose between our integrated e-reader, and the option to download and use e-books with their choice of application including screen-reading software.

All academic e-books published from 2025 onwards are being delivered in ePub3 format, in addition to print and PDF.  Published books are being retrospectively upgraded, with the 2024 publications already being made available, and plans are in place to deliver accessible versions of backlist titles to 2015.

Practitioner e-books are available through the VitalSource Bookshelf platform (VitalSource is a global technology solutions provider working with key organisations with a commitment to accessibility), aiming to offer required features and functionality while retaining control over access that is key to the business model.

This project forms part of an organisational-wide drive to improve accessibility across all our digital products and services. If you’re an author and would like some help to understand how we plan to make your e-book more accessible, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via books@theiet.org