By Alex Huls | March 5, 2025

This March, York University is recognizing and participating in SDG Month Canada, a national initiative to advance collaboration, awareness and engagement around the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

Throughout the month, YFile will present a series of articles that highlight contributions from York University and its efforts to advance the SDGs. These stories reflect the people, research and initiatives that help position the University as international leader in sustainability.

Kicking off the series is a story that shares the work of Library Accessibility Services (LAS) and its efforts contributing to UN SDG 10 - Reducing Inequalities.

Claudio Iacoe, a transcription coordinator at LAS, can remember a time when there were limited options to offer students with print disabilities – a learning, physical or visual disability that prevents a person from reading conventional print.

“When I started in 2004, in terms of alternate formats, you had four-track audio tape or braille,” he says about what was available to those in need of accessible course or research materials.

Then, technology changed. Audio formats advanced, providing easier and more flexible ways to listen to books. Scanners became more powerful, allowing better use of Optical Character Recognition – technology that enables printed text to be read aloud by a computer. Perhaps most significantly, the rise of smartphones, e-readers and adaptive reading devices meant digital formats like PDFs and ePub became widely used alternatives to physical books.

As a result, those requiring accessible materials – whether due to mobility, visual or other challenges – now have more equitable access to resources.

Throughout this shift, LAS – much like York University as a whole – has not only kept pace with emerging trends and technologies but has also proactively sought ways to ensure library materials can be made available to all.

“The LAS team is intentionally devoted to reducing barriers to information access for those who require alternate formats,” says Michelle De Agostini, manager, access services. “This means the team continually scans for partnership opportunities or initiatives across the province or the country that enable shared creation of materials in high quality alternate formats that can be distributed to our patrons in a timely fashion.”

One key initiative has been improving in-house access to electronic resources. As publishers have expanded the availability of e-books, either directly to universities or through platforms like BookShare, these files haven’t always been easy to distribute, especially due to their size. “In the past, students would have to routinely visit our office, and we would transfer large files to physical media like CDs,” recalls Iacoe. “It was a real inconvenience for them.” This delay meant that students were not always able to begin their coursework with the necessary materials, potentially setting them behind their peers.

To address this, 10 years ago, YUL established a server to store and distribute digital materials. Papyrus, as it’s called, functions as an online delivery system that allows students immediate access – much like cloud-based services such as Dropbox. Now, when a request comes through Student Accessibility Services, LAS can respond instantly. “If we already have the required PDF or ePub in our database, we can link it, and the student gains access immediately,” says Iacoe. “That’s a huge innovation.”

Since its launch, Papyrus has grown to house more than 23,000 accessible books and served more than 3,000 students. While many publishers now provide digital versions of their texts, not all do. LAS has worked to ensure that Papyrus remains as comprehensive as possible.

One way LAS achieves this is by strengthening relationships with content providers. As communication with publishers has improved, turnaround times for obtaining digital texts or audio have significantly decreased. “We have established contacts who know our needs, so we no longer have to explain our requests each time,” says Iacoe. “Now, it’s just a quick exchange, and the process is much faster.”

The benefit for students is that the waiting period for essential materials has been dramatically reduced. Once a resource is added to Papyrus, it remains available for future learners as well.

LAS is also expanding access by digitizing older texts housed in York’s libraries. Previously, graduate students with print disabilities faced challenges in conducting targeted research. “Because of scanning limitations, they would have to ask someone to check the table of contents, bibliography or index and then request specific pages for digitization,” Iacoe explains.

Now, thanks to advanced scanning technology and a commitment to efficiency, LAS fulfills such requests by digitizing entire books. This ensures that students can access the content as seamlessly as their peers. Digital tools such as Adobe Photoshop also help LAS restore degraded text, making scanned materials easier to process with text-to-speech software. If a scan remains difficult to read, LAS collaborates with Alternate Education Resources Ontario (AERO), which can produce an error-free Word document.

In terms of what lies ahead, Iacoe and the rest of the LAS team remain always ready to identify what more they can do. Among current initiatives is one related to the Marrakesh Treaty, which set international standards on exceptions to copyright to ensure access to print materials and that they can be adapted into other formats, like online, Braille, audiobooks and more. LAS is in the process of incorporating related guidelines from the Canadian Federation of Library Associations into their workflows.

Additionally, there are new publishers that are providing accessible resources in various formats, including audiobooks, that LAS is incorporating into providing access for the York community. The department has also become a member of HathiTrust, a large resource of digitized books and journals from around the world, which can be offered to students needing online copies of texts, so LAS does not have to digitize everything locally.

Collectively, these efforts represent a strong reflection of one of the many parts of York University advancing SDGs across campuses. "The library is deeply engaged with advancing the UN SDGs. LAS’ work is one illustration of our commitment to reducing inequalities (UN SDG 10) with particular emphasis on target 10.2: ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, including by eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and action in this regard,” says Sheril Hook, associate dean, teaching and learning.

In the meantime, Iacoe – and the LAS team, which also includes transcription assistants Gabriel Pajor, Laszlo Juhos and Veronica Pinnock – is proud of that commitment and their collective efforts so far, especially as Iacoe recalls how limited resources were when he first joined York.

“There was very little we could offer students,” he says. “Now, with our repository and publisher partnerships, it’s reassuring to know we can provide