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Hi Anne,

I'll add to these great resources from Karly. Artstor has pretty extensive documentation available about their web accessibility efforts—it seems like they steer folks to contributor-generated object metadata as the "alt text" for any given image, which will naturally vary in quality. It isn't alt text in the strictest sense of the term, but will sometimes be a nice in-depth image description.

I would also note that even when sites or institutions provide alt text either visibly or in HTML, when the faculty member downloads the image she'd typically have to scrape/copy the alt text separately and then re-embed it properly in whatever platform she is using (Powerpoint, Google Slides, an LMS, etc.) Good alt text is also context-dependent, so if she's planning to use images for teaching or publication I'd recommend crafting it based on the specific situation.

Hope this helps!

Best,

Claire

On Fri, Jun 12, 2020 at 11:42 AM Wildenhaus, Karly <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi Anne,

I am not sure if this falls within what the faculty member's considers an image library, but the recently relaunched Artists Space website uses alt texts extensively for all its images—displaying them even for those not using screen readers:

https://images.artistsspace.org

They've provided an explanation of this practice here:

https://artistsspace.org/about-this-website#image-descriptions

Additionally, this article in Art in America may be of interest as it mentions several museums who have similar practices for their online images:

How Museums Are Making Artworks Accessible to Blind People Online

https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/the-met-mca-chicago-blind-access-alt-text-park-mcarthur-shannon-finnegan-1202677577

Warmly,

Karly

From: ARLIS/NA List <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Anne Haas <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2020 9:49 AM
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] [ARLIS-L] Image database with alt text?

Hi all,

I hope you are all doing well and staying safe..different parts of the country seem to be getting worse, and some better…in any case, sending good thoughts.

A studio art faculty member has asked this question. “Is there an image library that we can pull from to present contemporary art and art history examples to students that has the alt text captions already built into it?”

I didn’t have an answer—sent her to ArtStor and Artifex for images with info, but I didn’t know of this alt text aspect…do you?

I await your brilliant replies!

Best,

Anne

Anne B. Haas

Art Librarian

Bowdoin College

Brunswick, Maine

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