Accessibility Statement for Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora

Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora is governed by key policies grounded in the values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in respect for all of the members of the communities we serve regardless of age, body size, disability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, level of experience, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.

We want everyone who reads the journal of visits the Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora website to feel welcome and find the experience rewarding. 

What are we doing?

Obsidian Print volumes
Obsidian is made accessible to readers by having each published volume available in multiple formats, including the print journal, PDF format, and a web-based OJS site for subscribers that is compatible with screen reading software. Obsidian’s accessibility goal is to work toward making content that meets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), as described in the PKP document “Creating Accessible Content: A Guide for Journal Editors and Authors,” which is aimed at content creators who use OJS as a web-based publishing platform. Moreover, Obsidian’s content provider partners ProQuest and JSTOR ensure that Obsidian content meets certain accessibility standards for researchers who use these services in libraries, which can be found in the ProQuest and JSTOR accessibility statements on their respective websites.

Obsidian volumes can be made accessible in other formats upon request, such as EPUB3, Microsoft Word, or HTML files.

Obsidian Website
To help us make the Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora website a positive place for everyone, we’ve been using the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. These guidelines explain how to make web content more accessible for people with disabilities, and user friendly for everyone.

The guidelines have three levels of accessibility (A, AA and AAA). We’ve chosen Level AA as the target for the Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora website. We are in the process of upgrading our website and making changes as we grow.

How are we doing?

We’re working hard to achieve our goal of Level AA accessibility, but we realise there are some areas that still need improving. The following information explains what we’re doing to make that happen.

Success criteria 1.1.1:

We are in the process of updating our website to provide alternatives. We aim to achieve this by July 31, 2022

Success criteria 1.2.1:

We are in the process of updating our website to provide alternatives. We aim to achieve this by July 31, 2022

Success criteria 1.2.2:

We are in the process of updating our website to provide alternatives. We aim to achieve this by July 31, 2022

Web components available upon request:
Success criteria 1.1.1; 1.2.1; and 1.2.2:
• text alternative for non-text content
• alternatives for pre-recorded time-based media (audio, video)
• captions for pre-recorded audio in synchronized media

Let us know what you think

If you enjoyed reading our journal or using the Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora website, or if you had trouble with any part of it, please get in touch.

We’d like to hear from you in any of the following ways:

• email us at info@obsidianlit.org
• get in touch at https://obsidianlit.org/contact

This accessibility statement was updated January 19, 2022. We are reviewing our website’s accessibility using the Accessibility Statement Generator, built by Nomensa.