Universal Accessibility Interest Group

  • 1.  Experience with citation management tools and screen readers?

    Posted Nov 10, 2022 04:45 PM
    Hi,

    Do you have any experience with, or knowledge about, using citation management tools with screen readers? I'm meeting next week with a blind student who wants to learn how to use Zotero or another citation management tool, and I'm doing some research to prepare. Thus far, I've found slides from a 2017 Accessing Higher Ground presentation, these step-by-step instructions for using Word's Source Manager with NVDA or JAWS, and this list of accessibility issues in Zotero. I will continue looking for info online, but if anyone on here has any wisdom (or even any secondhand anecdotal information), I'd be hugely appreciative.

    Thanks!
    Jill

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    Jill Cirasella (she/her)
    Associate Professor
    Associate Librarian for Scholarly Communication
    Mina Rees Library, CUNY Graduate Center
    jcirasella@gc.cuny.edu
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  • 2.  RE: Experience with citation management tools and screen readers?

    Posted Nov 10, 2022 10:10 PM
    Hi Jill
    I copied a thread about Zotero accessibility from another listserv to this one within the past year I believe. I'll try to find it and forward it to you but I'm writing now in case I don't get to it soon enough.

    My other suggestion since you're in New York City is to contact Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library and ask if Chauncey Fleet or another screen reader user could help with this. Maybe referring your student to them would be the way to go. Transportation was a major impediment for a student I referred there once before the pandemic though so that might be a consideration.
    Adina





  • 3.  RE: Experience with citation management tools and screen readers?

    Posted Nov 11, 2022 10:32 AM
    Hi again Jill,
    I wanted to say thank you for the info you linked to about citation manager accessibility.  I'll keep that doc with the keystrokes for Word in mind.  Here's the post about Zotero again.  In my mind the most useful part might be the (possible) offer of help from a screen reader user who has managed to use Zotero.  I'd love to hear about it if your student still seems to be inclined to use a citation manager after you meet with them.  I hope it works.
    Adina

    Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2022 15:48:34 +0000
    From: "Romack, Justin" <justinr@disability.tamu.edu>
    To: Access Technology Higher Education Network
    Subject: Re: [Athen] Reference/citation management tool and JAWS?
    Message-ID:
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
    Not sure if you gotten any feedback on this yet...
    But I'm a graduate student and started using Zotero last fall.
    It's not entirely accessible, but it got me close enough so that I could keep track of my sources, add some custom details as necessary, and generate citations.
    FWIW: I use NVDA, but I doubt the experience would differ all that much.
    Happy to provide any other insight that could be helpful.
    Also inclined to find a more accessible option to not have the mental gymnastics of remembering which unlabeled field corresponds with each piece of metadata.
    Thanks!
    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    Justin Romack  | Assistive Technology Coordinator
    Disability Resources | Texas A&M University
    1224 TAMU | College Station, TX 77843-1224
    ph: 979.845.1637 | justinr@disability.tamu.edu | disability.tamu.edu
    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    DIVISION OF STUDENT AFFAIRS | One Division. One Mission


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    Adina Mulliken
    Social Work Subject Specialist & Assistant Professor
    Hunter College, CUNY
    New York, NY
    She/Her/Hers
    am2621@hunter.cuny.edu
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  • 4.  RE: Experience with citation management tools and screen readers?

    Posted Nov 11, 2022 11:20 AM
    Hi Jill, 

    I'm one of the people who developed that list of Zotero issues. I'm a screen reader user (not screen reader dependent), and I can answer some questions if you have any. I've been using Zotero for a large bibliography project recently, and it's a bit exhausting. 

    The big problem is that on PC, you have to have the inaccessible desktop app installed and running in order to use the plug-ins to quickly send articles to Zotero. I don't know if I could use it if I were screen-reader-dependent. 

    Mark Weiler in Toronto uses Zotero with JAWS, so he could be a contact too. 

    Thanks,
    D.