The University of Toronto Libraries is obliged and committed to making our collections equitably available to persons with disabilities. If the available format of our collections presents challenges or barriers to our members, we will work with you to make our collection, and in some cases other required course materials such as textbooks, available in a format that best suits your needs.
Print conversion
Some library users may have a print disability which makes it difficult or impossible to make use of reading material, such as the books on our shelves or your assigned textbook. As needed and upon request, we will provide this material in an alternate format. To make use of this service, we ask that you first follow our guidelines for confirming eligibility.
Once you have identified the material you need and your preferred format, we will work to have it converted and available as soon as possible. Obtaining an alternate format can take anywhere from days to weeks depending on your preferred format, so the sooner you let us know what you need, the better.
Accessible Content E-Portal (ACE)
The Accessible Content E-Portal (ACE) is a platform providing registered users access to more than 24,000 digitized books in multiple accessible formats.
A unique token is required to browse and download from the ACE platform. To request a token, we ask that you first follow our guidelines for confirming eligibility.
HathiTrust Accessible Text Request Service
The HathiTrust Digital Library is a collection of more than 17 million digitized books, many of which with "limited (search-only)" access due to copyright restrictions.
The University of Toronto Libraries is able to provide access to nearly every item in the HathiTrust Digital Library to users who are blind or print disabled, including books in copyright, via the HathiTrust Accessible Text Request Service.
To request titles from the HathiTrust Digital Library in screen-readable PDF format, we ask that you first follow our guidelines for confirming eligibility.
Captioning
The library's audiovisual collection may pose challenges to users. If not already available, we will make available captioning, described video, or transcription for all audiovisual material contained in our collection, as needed and upon request. This applies to both physical collections (e.g. DVD or Blu-ray) and online (e.g. streaming video).
While we will work to ensure that library audiovisual collections are accessible, we encourage instructors to consider whether their personal course materials account for these considerations, as instructors are also required to address the need for captioning, upon request. If you are an instructor requiring assistance with obtaining or producing captioning or transcription for your audiovisual teaching materials, please feel free to contact us for guidance.
Web accessibility
If any available content hosted on the library website poses an accessibility challenge or barrier to you, we will work to provide a suitable alternate format. Anyone using our website can let us know what website content is inaccessible and what format is preferred. More information on the University of Toronto Libraries' commitment to web accessibility is available here.