ARL and CARL Celebrate Human Rights Day with Resources on Marrakesh Treaty and Accessible Books Consortium

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Globally, less than 10% of all published material is accessible to people with visual disabilities according to the World Blind Union. The Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled (“Marrakesh Treaty”) is meant to address this problem by allowing for international lending of books in accessible formats.

The Marrakesh Treaty is the first World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) copyright treaty that is user-focused and supports human rights; the treaty’s preamble references the principles of “accessibility and full and effective participation and inclusion” that are proclaimed in both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

December 10 is Human Rights Day, a commemoration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) are taking this opportunity to share information and resources for libraries and publishers to help improve access to scholarly and literary works for people with perceptual disabilities:

• Libraries play a key role in implementing the Marrakesh Treaty by producing and lending access to print-alternative works across borders. In 2023, a task force led by Victoria Owen of University of Toronto produced a framework and series of recommendations for ARL, CARL, and their member libraries to help implement the goals of the Marrakesh Treaty.
• The Accessible Books Consortium (ABC) supports the goals of the Marrakesh Treaty at a practical level. Participating libraries can contribute their collections of accessible digital books to ABC’s Global Book Service (GBS), and add accessible digital books to their collections.
• ABC also promotes the production of “born accessible” publications, which build accessibility into technology and content to meet the needs of people with disabilities, and are made available to people with perceptual disabilities at the same time as their sighted peers. Born-accessible publishing—particularly of educational, scholarly, and scientific and technical publications—benefits all readers and publishers.  
  • ABC’s Charter for Accessible Publishing contains eight principles that publishers should follow to make their digital publications accessible to persons with print disabilities.
  • ABC’s Course on Accessible Publishing Concepts in English is a free, online course open to all.
• Recently, Victoria Owen and Monica Halil Lövblad, head of ABC, presented on the Marrakesh Treaty and ABC’s programs and initiatives promoting the production of born-accessible content in a webinar by the Library Publishing Coalition, “Global Laws and Initiatives for Accessible Publishing.” View the webinar via the Penn State University website to learn more about the Marrakesh Treaty and ABC.

For more on ARL and CARL’s work on Marrakesh Treaty implementation, please contact kklosek@arl.org and katherine.mccolgan@carl-abrc.ca.

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