For All the World to Share: Developing and Implementing Accessible Web Sites
Julie Beeler, Second Story Interactive Studios, USA
Patricia Tuohy, National Library of Medicine, USA
Helen Garton, National Library of Medicine, USA
John Slatin, University of Texas at Austin, USA
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine

Session: Exhibition Projects

Using the National Library of Medicine's recent on-line exhibition Changing the Face of Medicine: Celebrating America's Women Physicians as a study, this paper will discuss issues of design, accessibility, and government responsibility in the creation of accessible Web sites.

The early pioneers of the internet created an open environment where users and developers freely shared ideas. This open and non-exclusive philosophy guided many of the successful innovations of the World Wide Web. The federal government has continued this egalitarian philosophy and, in 1998, the U.S. Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Section 508 was then enacted to eliminate barriers in information technology, to make available new opportunities for people with disabilities, and to encourage development of technologies that will help achieve these goals. But what does that mean to users of the internet? To government agencies? To the creative community?