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 Site:
- Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue – https://searcharchives.bl.uk/
How accessible this website is
We know some parts of this Site are not fully accessible:
- Some catalogue results are in a language other than English, and are not tagged with the relevant language
Compliance status
This website is fully compliant with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
Non-accessible content
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons:
Content not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
- Non-English phrases within catalogue search results (e.g. arising from metadata relating to non-English works) are not marked with appropriate ‘lang’ attributes, meaning that assistive technologies can not programmatically detect the language and switch pronunciation rules and users of such technologies may not be able to understand the content. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 3.1.2 (Language of Parts).
The catalogue metadata content cannot be re-extracted from the original manuscripts by automated and cost-efficient means in order to transform it into content compatible with the accessibility requirement. It is therefore exempt from the Regulations under Reg 3(2)(f)(ii).
How we tested this website
This website was last tested on 27 November 2025. A full test of the catalogue was conducted by Resillion on four different Operating systems i.e. Windows, Mac, iOS and Android, using several browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge and Safari.
Accessibility testing included screen readers NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver and Talkback as well as assistive technologies such as Apple Zoom, Windows Magnifier and Dragon NaturallySpeaking.
A manual WCAG compliance review was also performed to assess additional relevant accessibility criteria like colour contrast testing and keyboard accessibility testing.
After remediation work, the British Library re-tested the catalogue using Google Lighthouse, and via manual checks on personal devices, laptops and phones, including some with screen reader functionality, and via desktop browser emulation of a variety of mobile devices.
Other accessibility statements
Visit our main accessibility statement page to view statements for our wider web estate.