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Accessibility

Information on how the Library supports accessibility and inclusivity.

Enhancing digital reading

Do you find reading text in e-books and online journals challenging or uncomfortable? This guide highlights built-in tools within e-book and online journal platforms, as well as assistive applications, to enhance your screen reading experience.

Text-to-speech

Listening back to text can help some readers with:

  • comprehension
  • reading fluency and speed
  • focus
  • avoiding misreading of words.

 

Visual display and layout

Some platforms let you adjust text display settings, such as:

  • text size
  • font
  • background colour
  • line spacing.

Academic reading is different to reading for pleasure. Tools in many of our e-book platforms enable bookmarking, highlighting and annotation to help you record key ideas, review, and make sense of what you are reading.

 

Alternative formats

Online library resources should be accessible to all. If you find any of our digital texts inaccessible and have a referral from the Student Health and Wellbeing team, we can supply you with an alternative format. See our alternative formats guidance for more information.

RNIB Bookshare provide guidance on reading in your preferred format.

Accessibility tools in e-books

You will find many of our e-books available through VLeBooks and Proquest Central. The guides below show how you can access text-to-speech, customise the display and bookmark, annotate and highlight the text.

Accessibility tools in other resources

Our main e-book providers have included tools within their online reading platforms to support your reading. 

Understanding formats

EPUB

EPUBs can be used offline. The content adjusts to fit your screen size, making EPUB ideal for reading on phones, tablets, or e-readers. Most library e-books in EPUB format are displayed in the publisher's or supplier's online e-reader. If you can download an EPUB, you can use it with one of the recommended tools below—Thorium is an accessible EPUB reader.

PDF

PDFs can be used offline and usually have a fixed format, preserving the same layout as the printed version. They're great if maintaining the original layout and page numbers is important or if you want to print a hard copy to read. For a better experience on smaller screens, try using the Adobe app in liquid mode.

Html

Must be used online. Content is presented on a webpage. You can use browser extensions or tools, such as Immersive Reader, to listen back to text or adjust the display. Keep in mind, Html books and articles usually do not have page numbers.

Assistive software, tools and e-readers

Many of our resources can be downloaded in PDF, EPUB or other formats such as Word or plain text. You can use these files with assistive software or the tools built into operating systems and browsers. How much content you can download varies across providers, see our E-book Guide for more information.

Reading for pleasure

City Library provides a wide selection of fiction and non-fiction titles through Libby. You can access these titles in the following ways:

Libby's accessibility guidance has more information on how to change the display and adjust the accessibility settings in e-books.

Audiobooks

Audiobooks are a popular format with many benefits. Most of the audiobooks on Libby are read by humans. You can also add bookmarks, notes, and highlights in an audiobook.

Access the full audiobook collection in Libby.

Further Support

If you have any difficulty accessing any of our resources, contact us.