VALA2020 SC3 Lock

The Trials of Transcription: Adventures in best practice video and audio transcription for accessibility

VALA2020 SC3
Tuesday 11 February 2020, 2:45 – 3:50

Kirsty Lock
  • Wyndham City

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View the presentation slides here:

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VALA2020 SC3 Lock Slides 4MB
Abstract

In 2018 Wyndham City Libraries embarked on a new community engagement project, Live with the Librarians, a quarterly Facebook livestream with a panel of librarians to discuss and recommend book titles to the viewing public. The panels include four library members of staff who discuss books for thirty minutes to an hour, and sometimes address questions raised by the community during the live feed.

Questions of accessibility were quickly raised after the first broadcast, especially with a lower sound quality than we had anticipated (a situation remedied by the second livestream with purchases of new AV equipment). Shorter ‘teaser’ content prior to the broadcast had included captions or a transcription of content; however, we found the methods used to ensure accessible content for these posts was not viable for a longer format – being too time intensive and using too many staff resources. With a team committed to making content accessible for distribution, third party solutions were investigated however we quickly hit financial and procedural roadblocks.

At the time of writing this abstract, Wyndham City Libraries have hit a roadblock in terms of budget and are navigating options to add closed captions and/or a transcript of our library panels. We hope to find a suitable economically viable solution and develop a set of guidelines and instructions for further programs.

This session seeks to explore our journey with accessible audio-visual content, and will focus on issues such as:

  • Pitching accessibility solutions to leadership teams
  • Finance – what to do when an inexpensive project blows out past the initial budget
  • Interpreting WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.0 standards
  • Best practice – how do you decide when you have done enough?
  • Why accessibility?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License.