Library Help: Teaching and learning

You can find useful information on E-book accessibility features on our library webpages.  However, it can also be helpful to have a personal account of what it’s like to use these settings.  Take a look at this review of using e-book accessibility settings by one of our library colleagues!

E-reading on phones 

VLeBooks

When using VLeBooks for reading e-books on your phone, dark mode is used as standard to ease eyestrain. The book itself is black writing on a white background, but there is the option to change the colour of the page into eight different colours.

It might be worth changing the layout of the page to make the pages easier to read. You can view the pages as a double, or single option. So, if viewing the book on a double page spread, you can change this to a single page with fit to height and width, enabling closer viewing. There is automatic audio for each page, however there is an easy on and off for this option on screen.

To find out more about this, please visit VLeBook’s Accessibility Settings page.

EBSCOhost

EBSCOhost has standardised views with a white background and black text. There is continuous scrolling throughout the entire view of the PDF, however, this means there are no page numbers. Arrows can be used to go to the next or previous chapter, and a content bar on the right-hand side will allow you to go directly to a chapter without needing to use the arrow feature.

A search within option enables you to do a thorough search for keywords throughout the entire text, and EBSCO also allows you to take notes once signed in. You will need to be signed in to use a lot of the functions, including notes.

When reading text, be aware there is no option to highlight the text, nor dark mode. There are additional tools on the top of the page within a drop down menu, including add to folder, save pages, citation, dictionary and exports.

Full details are available on EBSCOhost’s Accessibility User Guide and FAQs page.

ProQuest Ebook Central 

ProQuest meets the minimum specifications for accessibility; however, you will need to change some options within your browser. They recommend using ‘Change Colours’ for Chrome and ‘Colour Changer’ for Firefox.

There are no embedded text-to-speech options but you can use browser extensions for text-to-speak functions. There is an Accessibility mode that can be toggled on through “My Profile”. This has a dyslexia option to toggle on easy-to-read typeface. Whilst there is also the option to zoom, you need to find this via the menu, rather than through touchscreen on your device.

Full details are available on their accessibility page or their accessibility video. 

JStor

Ebooks on JStor are available to download as a standard PDF format. You can find out more about using e-books on JStor in this video. 

E-reading on computers, e-readers and tablets 

VLeBooks 

For reading book PDFs from VLeBooks, there is a dark mode option on the side of your screen. This is white writing on a black background, with the book being a white background with black writing. There is an option for audio playback with continual, pause, rewind and fast forward functions. You can also change the colour and zoom in or out of the page. 

While using VLeBooks  in web page view, there is an option prior to opening the book for changing accessibility settings. This has options for font size, high contrast, highlighting links, underlining links, greyscale (on Chrome and Firefox only), dyslexic front, and preventing auto pop ups from closing. 

EBSCOhost 

Same options as on phones. 

ProQuest Ebook Central 

ProQuest Ebook Central supports colour contrast changes in your browser, although there is no embedded function to do this. They recommend browser extensions to change colours: ‘Change Colours’ for Chrome and ‘Colour Changer’ for Firefox.  

There is no embedded text-to-speak options but you can use browser extensions for this functionality. Accessibility mode can be toggled on or off easily through accessing "My Profile", as well as turning on/off Open Dyslexic typeface to spread out text on the screen. 

JSTOR

Same options as on phones.