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The University of Manchester Library

Web accessibility statement

This statement applies to content published on:

Library Search

Other websites that also belong to The University of Manchester and use manchester.ac.uk sub-domains are managed locally and will publish separate statements with information relevant to them. These include websites of our academic Schools and research institutes, among others.

We want as many people as possible to be able to use our website and we are continually working towards improving its accessibility. We follow general principles of usability and universal design, and endeavour to meet level 2 (AA) of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1.

This website will allow you to:

  • zoom in up to 200% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard or speech recognition tools
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader
  • view essential audiovisual information (captions or transcriptions are provided in most cases)

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible.

Please see the Technical Information section below for more detailed information on known accessibility issues.

Making changes to your device

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

Also, the University’s Disability Advisory and Support Service (DASS) website offers up-to-date information for prospective students and staff with specific learning difficulties, disabilities, sensory impairments, mental health difficulties and medical conditions.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

Please contact us via the ‘Library Help’ pages if you require information on this website in a different format, have an accessibility query (including about content not within the scope of the accessibility regulation), identify any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements:

Please provide the web address (URL) of the page(s) in which you find the problem, a description of the issue and your name. We will consider your request and get back to you within ten working days.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to a complaint about accessibility please let us know. If you remain unsatisfied, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

We are committed to making our website accessible, in accordance with the accessibility regulations.

This website is partially compliant with the WCAG 2.1 AA standard, due to the instances of non-compliance and exceptions listed below.

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons:

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Please note:  These issues are specific to the University of Manchester installation of ‘Library Search’ which is published via the Primo VE platform (Ex Libris).  For more known issues on the Primo VE platform, please the ‘Third party content’ section below.

Issues with text and images:

  • Some links or buttons are not labelled in a way that makes their purpose clear for all users (WCAG: 2.4.4)

We are working with Ex Libris to resolve the issues above as soon as possible.

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents

Some non-essential PDF documents that were published before 23 September 2018 may not be fully accessible. All subsequent PDF documents will comply with accessibility regulations.

Third party-content

Our site uses, and / or links to third-party content which the University does not design or control and therefore accessibility standards may vary.

The Library Search website uses a third-party platform to publish content; ‘Primo VE’ by Ex Libris.

A separate accessibility statement for Primo VE (including known issues) is available on the Ex Libris support pages:

Electronic resources

The University of Manchester Library provides users with access to third-party content and electronic resources through this website.  A full list of third-party content suppliers along with relevant accessibility information is available for download in Microsoft Excel format:

The spreadsheet linked above outlines the following accessibility information:

  • The name of the third-party content provider
  • A link to a third-party accessibility statement if available
  • A link to an ASPIRE accessibility analysis report if available. ASPIRE is a verification service for accessibility statements in the publishing industry.  The data is crowd-sourced from several educational institutions, including The University of Manchester.
  • A 'Lighthouse' accessibility score if available.  Lighthouse is a Google tool that allows us to measure the accessibility of our third-party content.  We are currently in the process of scoring all of our third-party content providers using Lighthouse.

If you are experiencing any accessibility issues with a University of Manchester Library third-party content supplier, please contact us in the first instance:

How we tested this website

This statement was prepared on 22 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 27 January 2022.

This website was last tested on 27 January 2022. The test was carried out by The University of Manchester Library. The scan report highlights any content that is not compliant with WCAG 2.1.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

Accessibility is a key consideration for the University. We have checked to ensure that all high-traffic third party platforms or electronic resources are compliant with the accessibility regulations.  We are also actively auditing and scoring each of our third-party providers using the Google product 'Lighthouse'. We will continue to highlight the importance of accessibility for our users to all suppliers (which will include integrating accessibility into contract renewals and future procurement procedures). 

We have an ongoing programme of work to address any accessibility issues that are highlighted by our weekly scans. We are continually working on our content and site structure, and finding ways to make the site more intuitive and easy to navigate. We are developing guidelines on how to create accessible content to help those colleagues working on our websites.