Scope

The British Library is committed to making its websites accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

The British Library operates a number of websites, subsites, and online services (“Sites”).

This accessibility statement supplements our main Accessibility Statement, and applies to the following Sites:

• Blogs - https://www.bl.uk/blogs
• American Collections Blog - https://blogs.bl.uk/americas/
• Asian & African Studies Blog - https://blogs.bl.uk/asian-and-african/
• Collection Care Blog - https://blogs.bl.uk/collectioncare/
• Digital Scholarship Blog - https://blogs.bl.uk/digital-scholarship/
• Endangered Archives Blog - https://blogs.bl.uk/endangeredarchives/
• English & Drama Blog - https://blogs.bl.uk/english-and-drama/
• European Studies Blog - https://blogs.bl.uk/european/
• Innovation & Enterprise Blog - https://blogs.bl.uk/business/
• Living Knowledge Blog - https://blogs.bl.uk/living-knowledge/
• Maps & Views Blog - https://blogs.bl.uk/magnificentmaps/
• Medieval Manuscripts Blog - https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/
• Music Blog - https://blogs.bl.uk/music/
• Science Blog - https://blogs.bl.uk/science/
• Social Science Blog - https://blogs.bl.uk/socialscience/
• Sound & Vision Blog - https://blogs.bl.uk/sound-and-vision/
• The Newsroom Blog - https://blogs.bl.uk/thenewsroom/
• UK Web Archive Blog - https://blogs.bl.uk/webarchive/
• Untold Lives Blog - https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/

How accessible these websites are

We know some parts of these Sites are not fully accessible:

• Text and links do not have sufficient contrast against background
• Browser zoom functionality is disabled
• Some on-page skip links are broken
• Some links are empty, unnamed, or have repeated names
• Adjacent links go to the same URL
• Headings are skipped
• Video content published before 23 September 2020 is not required to be audio transcribed or subtitled.

Compliance status

These websites are partially compliant with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons: 

Content not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

• Pre-recorded time-based media published before 23rd September 2020 is exempt from the Regulations under Reg 3(2)(b). This content might fail any of the WCAG 2.1 AA Success Criteria related to the provision of a transcript, subtitles, or audio description.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations 

• The colour of both text and links does not provide sufficient contrast against the background colour, meaning that users with moderate visual impairment who do not use assistive technologies may not be able to discern the content. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 (Contrast Minimum).

• Broswer zoom functionality is disabled, meaning that users with moderate visual impairment who do not use assistive technologies may not be able to discern the content. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.4 (Resize Text).
• Some on-page skip links are broken, meaning that users of assistive technologies or keyboard navigation may not be able to navigate the pages effectively. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.1.1 (Keyboard).

• Some buttons are 'empty', unnamed, or have repeated names, meaning that users of assistive technologies will not be able to understand the destination of the links, or be able to navigate them easily. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose in Context).

• Adjacent links go to the same URL, meaning that users of assistive technologies or with cognitive impairments may be disoriented by multiple options to accomplish the same effect. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose in Context). 

• Some pages skip Headings, meaning that users of assistive technologies may not receive the content in logical order. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.6 (Headings and Labels).

We plan to resolve these issues by replacing these sites in their entirety by December 2026.

How we tested these websites

These websites were last tested on 17 August 2020. A full review of the sites was carried out by the British Library using Wave and Google Measure.