Check out AALL's Website Makeover: Does It Reflect Our Profession's Access to All Principle?

I haven't gone very far beyond the front page of AALL's website makeover, meaning (1) I haven't checked out its search engine to see if is a substantial improvement and (2) I haven't check out to see if AALL's chronic tendency to upload poorly-formed, lame click-to-create PDF files that were never accessible to all and also tended to be buried deep within AALL's old site when documentation dealt with how AALL was conducting our business has improved. At least the site doesn't carry any banner ads from our legal professional services vendors on the front page -- at least not yet.

AALL's web site has desperately needed a style and functionality redo for quite awhile. For far too long so it have been an embarrassment for a profession which is expected to be "up to speed" in web communications. The site does not demonstrate that AALL is at the bleeding edge of webdev. It doesn't need to do that and not doing so isn't a bad thing. I just hope the site passes 508 compliance in all respects since we ought to be doing that now; the javascript driven navigation and the tree subject of the site map may or may not be. Note well, the front page does not link to a "text-only" version or 508 statement. Regarding the latter, it may not be a legal requirement that AALL must comply with but isn't accessibility to all something our professional association ought to support in deed, not just in talk, even for something so relatively insignificant as our website?

Why Are Americans With Disabilities Underrepresented in Law Librarianship? Hold on. If we advocate access to all, the accessibility of AALL's website is not insignificant. Better be or it is time to start working on redesign version X.1 because, once again, the site would be a professional embarrassment. To repeat again, I haven't gone very far beyond the site's new front page so I can't offer a possible answer to the question, does the madeover site reflect our profession's access to all principles? The question is not a nit-pick; it is important.

There may come a time when disabiled law librarians employed in the profession will approach a representative percentage of disabled Americans. We aren't even close to that day. Take for example the case of the seeing impaired. Some may ask "how can 'they' practice law librarianship?  Considering the current state of technology, my response to that question is another one question -- "why are 'they' still underrepresentated?" Blind law librarians? Where are "they?"

It has been some 20 years since the ADA passed and at least 10 years since "reasonable accomodations" for essential professional law librarian job responsiblities could be easily accomodated by IT solutions in many practice areas. But have you ever thought, "blind, no problem, law librarianship is a career path for you?" 

Endnote. I do not mean to ignore others with disabilities who may want to join our profession. I bring up the matter of the seeing impaired not because it may seem the most improbable but because of my personal and professional experience. {JH]