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At Fulcrum, accessibility isn’t just a feature—it’s part of our foundation. Fulcrum hosts titles from the University of Michigan Press and a number of other university presses and associations, and we’re always working to make sure the platform is inclusive and usable for everyone.

May 15th is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), a time to pause and reflect on how we can create more accessible digital experiences. The goal of GAAD is simple but powerful: to get people talking, thinking, and learning about digital access and inclusion. So in that spirit, we’re excited to share some accessibility updates coming soon to the Fulcrum platform!

These updates are part of our ongoing work to meet the European Accessibility Act (EAA) standards for both our web platform and ebook content, which go into effect this June. Over the next few weeks, you’ll notice two new features rolling out on all Fulcrum book detail pages designed to help readers discover accessible content more easily and request alternate formats when needed.

What’s New?

1. Accessibility Metadata

All books on Fulcrum that include an ebook will now have a new “Accessibility Claims” tab on their book detail page. This will appear whether or not we have specific accessibility metadata for the title.

If we do have metadata, you’ll see it displayed following the W3C UX Guidelines for Displaying Accessibility Metadata 1.0 (and parts of the recently published 2.0 version). The goal here is to provide transparency and help users understand the accessibility features available for each ebook.

2. Accessible File Requests

We’re also making it easier to request accessible versions of ebooks. If the metadata shows that a book isn’t screen reader friendly—or if there’s no accessibility metadata at all—you’ll see a button that lets you quickly request a file for remediation. That way, no one gets left out due to a lack of access.

What's Next?

We’re excited to highlight these updates on Global Accessibility Awareness Day. These changes are just one way we’re making Fulcrum more accessible for all readers, and we’re grateful to UMP staff for being so proactive and dedicated to continuous improvement.

“Surfacing title-level accessibility information and simplifying the process of requesting accessible files has been in planning for multiple years. It is exciting to see this work become public and will have meaningful impacts on many Fulcrum users and our publishing partners. But we aren’t stopping there. We will continue to improve the accessibility of Fulcrum and its content because with each incremental step we make, the platform becomes better for everyone.” – Jon McGlone, Digital Product Design Engineer & Accessibility Specialist

Stay tuned for more accessibility improvements in the coming months—and thanks for being part of the movement to make scholarly publishing more inclusive.