05/16/2024

Addressing Accessibility Gaps

Be open to conversations about who feels excluded, and why

Associations spend a lot of time thinking about standards. Technical and medical organizations work to establish safe and sensible guidelines for their professions. All manner of associations create certification and credentialing programs to ensure its members have the knowledge required to do their jobs well. And association research departments conduct benchmarking surveys to develop some baseline targets for a variety of initiatives.

With all that standard-setting, it can be hard to hear that whatever it is you're doing, it's not enough. But that may be the case when it comes to your association and accessibility.

For the latest set of Association Now Deep Dive stories covering emerging job roles at associations, I spoke with Hillary Pearson, program manager, accessibility services, at the American Library Association (ALA). One of her messages to associations is that compliance with standards—in this case, the Americans With Disabilities Act—won’t quite cut it. As she put it to me, “The ADA is the floor, not the ceiling.”

Please select this link to read the complete article from Associations Now.