LibGuides: Screen Reading and Library Resources: A Guide for ADA Accessibility: Major Vendors' Accessible Databases

Ebsco Databases

Built in ADA Accessibility Features in Databases

All of the EBSCO vendor databases (see list below) have a read aloud feature for HTML articles that may be manually activated.

choose the HTML Full Text option, the Listen icon appears on the Tools list just under the title of the article
you may select three different accents and reading speeds
to pause the reading, click on the pause button
For more information on searching EBSCO databases with JAWS 8.0, visit: http://support.epnet.com/knowledge_base/detail.php?id=3615

We will continue to add information to this page. If you have accessibility problems with any online resources please let us know by contacting the Library.

The instructions mainly relate to screen readers with some information for keyboard only users. Resources were tested using Firefox but hopefully they will be useful for other screen readers and browsers.

Screen Reader Instructions for EBSCO Databases

Instructions for screen reader and keyboard users:

Access the database, enter your search terms and press Enter to conduct the search. The resulting references are listed so that the Add to folder option appears after the title of the article it relates to.

Full text is provided in HTML or PDF or in some cases both formats. Use the HTML version when available. If only a PDF is provided and you are using JAWS, use Adobe Reader 7.0 to convert the article, but it will not always read in a linear fashion. If full text is not provided you can check if the Full Text Finder service has access to it via another supplier. Add the references you are interested in to a folder and opt to list them, then if you use links list in JAWS, the email, print and save to disk options are towards the bottom of the list. To carry out another search choose the Advanced Search link.

For keyboard users there are problems navigating an individual record using Internet Explorer, making it difficult to return to your results. You are advised to use the links to full text etc provided in the results list or use Firefox instead.

List of EBSCO databases with the Read Aloud Feature

AAS Historical Periodicals

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database from EBSCO, with more than 8,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals.
Art & Architecture Complete This link opens in a new window
Contains hundreds of periodicals and ebooks on art and architecture, as well as a collection of 63,000 images.

Biological Abstracts

Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Contains thousands of business periodicals, ebooks, reference works, conference proceedings, case studies, industry reports, author profiles, company reports, SWOT analyses, and more.
Communication Source This link opens in a new window
Offers abstracts and indexing as well as full-text content from publications worldwide pertaining to Communication, Linguistics, Rhetoric and Discourse, Speech-Language Pathology, Media Studies and related fields.

Criminal Justice Abstracts with Full Text

EconLit with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Contains American Economic Association's EconLit reference database as well as full text of nearly 600 journals.
ERIC This link opens in a new window
The database provides access to information from journals included in the Current Index of Journals in Education and Resources in Education Index. Content includes journal articles, research reports, curriculum and teaching guides, conference papers, dissertations and theses, and books dating back to 1966.

GreenFILE (Environmental Database)

Health Policy Reference Center This link opens in a new window
Includes full-text access to information in many areas of health policy, including health care access, care quality, and financing.
LGBTQ+ Source This link opens in a new window
Contains many of the most important and historically significant LGBT journals, magazines and regional newspapers, as well as a specialized thesaurus containing over 6,400 terms.
MasterFILE Premier This link opens in a new window
Multidisciplinary database covering virtually every subject area of general interest back to the mid-1970's. Contains full text for nearly 500 reference books and over 164,400 primary source documents, as well as an image collection of over 592,000 photos, maps & flags. Updated daily.
MEDLINE with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Provides authoritative information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and pre-clinical sciences found on MEDLINE, plus the database provides full text for more than 1,470 journals indexed in MEDLINE.

Military and Government Collection

Political Science Complete This link opens in a new window
Provides full text for more than 520 journals, and indexing and abstracts for over 2,900 titles (including top-ranked scholarly journals), many of which are unique to the product. The database also features over 340 full-text reference books and monographs, and over 36,000 full-text conference papers, including those of the International Political Science Association.
PsycARTICLES This link opens in a new window
Produced by the American Psychological Association (APA). A definitive source of full text, peer-reviewed scholarly and scientific articles in psychology. Coverage spans 1894 to the present.

PsycEXTRA This link opens in a new window
Produced by the American Psychological Association (APA). Features technical, annual and government reports, conference papers, newsletters, magazines, newspapers, consumer brochures and more.
PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
Produced by the American Psychological Association (APA). The largest resource devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health. It contains records and summaries dating as far back as the 1600s and includes journal coverage from the 1800s to present.
Public Administration Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Contains over 93,000 bibliographic records related to public administration, including public administration theory, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline.

Regional Business News

SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Includes full text of more than 860 journals (dating back to 1908), as well as 830 books, and 16,800 conference papers.

Gale Databases

Gale Databases provide a Listen function for full-text articles. This can be found on the detailed display screen, which can be accessed by clicking on the title of the article from the search results. Articles that are not in full-text do not have this option.

Further detail can be found at: http://www.cengage.com/accessibility/

Academic OneFile This link opens in a new window
Thomson Gale's Academic OneFile is a comprehensive periodical resource inclusive of more than 60 million articles using a single search query. More than 11,000 titles and backfile coverage from 1980 — from mainstream to specialized sources — and an intuitive search interface make this an unequaled source for virtually every popular, business and professional topic.

Academic Select (Gale OneFile) This link opens in a new window
Astronomy, Religion, Law, History, Psychology, Humanities, Current Events, Sociology, Communications and the General Sciences.
Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
Multidisciplinary eBook collection covering social sciences, history, business, literature, medicine, law and others.

General Business File ASAP
Business and management topics. Includes directory listings for over 150,000 companies as well as investment analysts' reports on major companies and industries.
General Reference Center GOLD
General Reference Center Gold provides one-stop access to general interest magazines, business periodicals, reference books, maps, historical images, and newspaper articles including: Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service Newspaper articles; The Christian Science Monitor; more than 20 reference books and more than 4,500 titles including 3,500 in full text. Records are available with a combination of indexing, abstracts, image, or full text formats.

Global Issues (Gale in Context) This link opens in a new window
Global Issues in Context aims to provide international perspectives on topics of global importance and current world events. The database brings together a variety of sources to present and analyse issues in many areas: social, political, military, economic, environmental, and cultural. Global Issues in Context includes primary sources, statistics, over 200 international newspaper sources, and video content.

Health and Wellness Resource Center
Provides instant access to carefully compiled and trusted medical reference materials. Includes nearly 400 health/medical journals, numerous reference volumes, over 700 health videos from partner Healthology, Inc., hundreds of pamphlets and health-related articles from 2,200 general interest publications in addition to a broad collection of Gale reference titles. Material contained in this Resource Center is intended for informational purposes only.
Health Reference Center - Academic
Health Reference Center Academic "provides access to the full text of nursing and allied health journals, plus [a] wide variety of personal health information sources.." This resource is designed for nursing / allied health students, and consumer health researchers.
Literature Criticism Online
Gale™ takes literature, history and culture to the next level with the largest, most extensive compilation of literary commentary available: Literature Criticism Online. Imagine centuries of analysis - the scholarly and popular commentary from broadsheets, pamphlets, encyclopedias, books and periodicals - delivered in an easy-to-use 24/7 online format that matches the exact look and feel of the print originals. The net result is tens of thousands of hard-to-find essays at your fingertips. It's all designed to raise the level of research while providing the around-the-clock remote access that today's researchers demand.
MarketShare Reporter (RMS)
Massachusetts History Online
Contains full-text articles gathered from almost 50 sources that directly relate to MA history.

Opposing Viewpoints (Gale In Context) This link opens in a new window
Opposing Viewpoints in Context is a database based on the social issues series published by Greenhaven Press, and other Gale imprints. It features viewpoint articles, topic overviews, academic journal and newspaper articles, primary source documents, and statistics.

Science in Context
Science in Context is an engaging online experience for those seeking contextual information on hundreds of today's most significant science topics. The new solution merges Gale's authoritative reference content with full-text magazines, academic journals, news articles, experiments, images, videos, audio files and links to vetted websites organized into a user-friendly portal experience.
U.S. History in Context
U.S. History in Context is an engaging online experience for those seeking contextual information on hundreds of the most significant people, events and topics in U.S. History. The new solution merges Gale's authoritative reference content with full-text magazines, academic journals, news articles, primary source documents, images, videos, audio files and links to vetted websites organized into a user-friendly portal experience.
World History In Context
World History in Context is an engaging online experience for those seeking contextual information on hundreds of the most significant people, events and topics in World History. The new solution merges Gale's authoritative reference content with full-text magazines, academic journals, news articles, primary source documents, images, videos, audio files and links to vetted websites organized into a user-friendly portal experience.

Proquest Databases

Instructions for screen reader users:

If you are using Internet Explorer and want to specify date ranges in Advanced Search use ALT + DOWN ARROW to open the Date Range combo box and use the up and down arrows to move through the options. Press enter to choose the appropriate date range, which may then open another box for you to enter the date details. If you don't access the combo box this way JAWS is confused when the additional date range boxes are automatically generated as you move through the options and stops reading. This does not happen with Firefox. Choose Full Text, rather than Full Text - PDF, where available. Once you are in Full Text, select level heading 2, to move straight to the full text.

http://www.proquest.com/en-US/site/accessibility.shtml

ABI/INFORM Complete
Hoover's Online
Do a keyword search or use the "Build A List" to find all of a particular kind/location of company. Or click the pale yellow "Companies" tab to search for company. If you get too many results by company name, Refine using factors to the left. You can download data or printable reports--But remember, some of this is duplicated in LexisNexis Academic.
New York Times (1851-2008)
Wall Street Journal 1889-1994
Wall Street Journal 1994 - present
The Wall Street Journal, Eastern Edition, is available in online full-text from 1984 to the present from the ProQuest database. Sawyer Library also owns The Wall Street Journal on microfilm from 1970 to the present.