[nabs-l] accessibility of ebsco databases

[Ashley Bramlett]

Hello Bridgit,
Glad your shared becausebecaus e its comforting to know I'm not alone.
Accessing my folder and its contents is a challenge. What I do is email 
everything in my folder to myself.
Then, I save them. Then, I either scan them or have to use an old fashioned 
reader.
I can find the edit boxes by pressing tab. But
the combo boxes are not working.

I can help you with the  search limiters. I am able to  check boxes to limit 
it to peer reviewed and full text.
If you use jaws this works.
I would imagine window eyes uses the same commands or similar ones.

Here is  the procedure.
1. After you type in your search terms, find the phrase, Limit your results.
Its near the bottom. You can find this by pressing the find command which is 
control F.
Type in Limit. After exiting  the find box, your screen reader
should be there.
Then go line by line to see what you wish to select.

2. If you are not familiar with the limiters, go line by line to explore 
options first.
Press down arrow to do this.
If jaws is stuck in an edit box, press escape to get out. Jaws says "list of 
13 items" as I begin this.
Here in the limiters are your options to limit to full text,  peer reviewed, 
certain dates, etc.

3. Then go back to the top of the limit results list.
Press letter x to go line by line. X is the hot key to jump to check boxes.
4. Press space when you hear your screen reader say full text or scholarly 
article, or whatever you need to check.
This checks the boxes.

5. Find the search button to start searching. That is very hard to find.
Still, I may sound expert, but really I struggle due to accessibility.
A librarian worked with me one on one to help navigate it and tell me what 
search limiters to put in place for best results. That is how I know what 
the phrase is to limit your results.

I do not know how helpful your librarians are, but if you can, I suggest 
getting an appointment
with one of them because not only will you do searches with them, but they 
will suggest sources that are a good fit for your assignment.
I know not all schools have one on one meetings, but its worth asking for. 
Also, if I could not do something do to access, the librarian would use the 
mouse to help me out.

HTH,
Ashley


-----Original Message----- 
From: Bridget Walker
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 1:25 PM
To: Ashley Bramlett ; National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] accessibility of ebsco databases

Hi Ashley,
I go to college in New York. I have a problem finding the check boxes that 
say "full text" "peer reviewed" I can usually get to the edit fields ok. I 
have a difficult time accessing the articles I have selected in my folder. I 
can get to my folder and go through the list but, like you said, the PDFS 
documents do not work. I have been tore lying on iBooks but, when I'm in the 
middle of a paper siting on the computer gets difficult because I can't copy 
any correct spellings easily.
I hope this helps.
Bridget

Sent from my iPad

> On Jan 14, 27 Heisei, at 12:51 PM, Ashley Bramlett via nabs-l 
> <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> As I conduct research at the library, I run into access issues with many 
> databases.
> Not only are the pdf files hard to read with the full articles in them, 
> but searching poses problems with jaws. When trying advanced searching, I 
> cannot change the combo boxes from the default And to say “or”.
>
> Has anyone had issues with ebsco databases? If so which ones?
> Another challenge is finding the search button.
>
> The head of the library at Northern virginia community college, called 
> nova for short, where I’m taking electives, is going to send EBSCo a note 
> about access. But it would be helpful to know other problems.
>
> If you are a student in a Virginia college and experience database 
> problems, please also write me off list. Maybe we can have a conference 
> call on this.
> I’d like to hear from other students in Virginia schools so we can write 
> jointly to Ebsco and tell them the problems and request they fix them.
> The same goes for other databases.
>
> When I asked about research a few  months back, some of you mentioned 
> accessible databases which you used, but for every accessible database, I 
> would guess there are 3 that are semi accessible.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Ashley
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