Procurement Leverage for Licensed Platforms
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This article was written by a person and reviewed against accessibility.chat editorial standards. Treat it as research and education rather than legal advice. We prioritize primary sources and correct material errors.
You cannot remediate the vendors. You can out-document them, and renewal is where that actually pays off.
Most of what your patrons touch — ebook and audiobook apps, research databases, the discovery layer, the events platform — is licensed, not built or owned by your library. You can't fix the code. What you can do is demand the paper, use the leverage you actually have, and be honest about the gap in the meantime.
Demand the documentation
Most major library platform and database vendors now publish Accessibility Conformance Reports (opens in new window), and consortial repositories collect them — check whether yours already has a library of what's been requested. Where a vendor publishes none, request one through your consortium rather than alone; a shared ask carries more weight than an individual library's. And build in the silence-default principle: if a vendor can't produce credible documentation, treat the product as non-conforming in your own records. That turns their silence into a finding instead of a shrug you have to absorb.
Use renewal leverage, especially through a consortium
Five clauses do the work at any scale: a standards representation tied to WCAG 2.1 AA (opens in new window), a remediation commitment, acceptance testing on what you're actually licensing, remedies with real teeth, and the silence default. A single branch negotiating alone has limited leverage. A consortium negotiating for two hundred libraries has real leverage — find out if yours already carries standard accessibility language in its master agreements, and if not, propose adding it at the next renewal cycle rather than waiting for someone else to raise it.
None of this is legal advice — bring these concepts to whoever handles your library's contracts or your consortium's counsel.
Document the bridge for what you can't fix
For known gaps in licensed platforms, write down the accommodation path — often interlibrary loan, staff-mediated search, or the vendor's own accessibility support line — and disclose it honestly in your public accessibility statement. This isn't an admission of failure. It's the difference between "small library, no program" and "small library, honest program" in any conversation this ever comes up in, including with a patron who's frustrated and deserves a straight answer about what you can and can't do today.
If a vendor hands you a report you want a second opinion on, ask Luke to check it. Our methodology covers how we verify claims like these.
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Sources: Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR) overview (opens in new window) · Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 (opens in new window) · How to Create an ACR Using a VPAT (opens in new window) · U.S. Access Board — Revised 508 Standards (opens in new window)
About Jeff Fryer
Jeff Fryer spent years working kitchens before moving into ADA compliance work for local government. He writes from that experience -- direct, plainspoken, allergic to compliance theater. Contributing writer at accessibility.chat.
Jeff Fryer is a person, not one of the AI analyst lenses this site also publishes under. A named human is accountable for this article.
Specialization: Local government ADA compliance, contributed from direct field experience
Authorship and Editorial Process
Jeff Fryer wrote this article. AI was not used to draft it. It went through the same editorial checks as everything else published here.