Portrait Image of Dr. Lydia Tang ThumbnailDr. Lydia Tang, Senior Outreach and Engagement Coordinator at Lyrasis, will be leading a session on Accessibility in Archives and Special Collections on Tuesday, Jan. 21 from 2 - 3 p.m. EST. 

Before Lyrasis, Dr. Tang held archivist positions with Michigan State University, Library of Congress and held numerous graduate positions at the University of Illinois, where she received her MLIS and Doctor of Musical Arts degree, including the American Library Association Archives, the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music, and the Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Passionate about accessibility and disability representation in archives, she served on the Task Force to Revise Best Practices on Accessible Archives for People with Disabilities and spearheaded founding the Society of American Archivists’ (SAA) Accessibility & Disability Section. She is the 2020 recipient of SAA’s Mark A. Greene Emerging Leader Award and was recognized in three SAA Council resolutions as a co-founder of the Archival Workers Emergency Fund, for spearheading the Accessibility & Disability Section’s “Archivists at Home” document and co-authoring the Guidelines for Accessible Archives for People with Disabilities.

We spoke with Lydia about her recent work in accessibility and the upcoming session. 

Dr. Tang, your work with libraries and archives regarding improvements and recommendations on accessibility has been extraordinary. You have presented and contributed professional service  advancing accessibility in archives for people with disabilities for several years and champion this in your role at Lyrasis. What inspired you and this passion?

Meeting my husband really inspired my accessibility work. He is legally blind and through his experience, I realized the ways that inaccessibility can be pervasive. As an archivist wanting to show him what I did and what I cared about, I realized that a lot of work needs to happen to advance accessibility broadly as a society and within the archival profession. Some of it is really big structural stuff, and some accessibility improvements can happen with awareness and intention on the individual level. Since then, I’ve been really involved with driving this change. I’ve been involved with the last two rounds of revisions for the Guidelines for Accessible Archives for People with Disabilities, a standard by the Society of American Archivists (SAA), and founded SAA’s Accessibility & Disability Section, which is a community of practice to connect around disability and accessibility in archives. 

Without giving away too much, who should take your class Accessibility in Archives and Special Collections on January 21? 

Everyone is welcome to attend my class. No prior knowledge is required. This topic is massive, so it will be an overview of accessibility considerations for physical spaces and digital content. Hopefully it can be a starting point for spurring discussion at your own institution about how to advance accessibility. 

While there is still so much work to do, can you briefly discuss any promising trends you have seen for accessibility in archives recently?

When I first started working on accessibility in archives, my panel presentation on accessibility at SAA was the first time in several years to address the topic. Now, presentations relating to accessibility and disability are happening every year at SAA and there have been conferences devoted to accessibility in archives. I keynoted for the Society of Ohio Archivists’ conference in 2024 which had a theme of accessibility. Coming up, the International Council on Archives has recently posted about their International Archives Week theme of “Archives are Accessible.” There’s growing awareness, enthusiasm and innovation around accessibility that is thrilling to see!

You recently edited a book, Preserving Disability: Disability and the Archives Profession, with Gracen Brilmyer. Can you tell us about that? 

This book was three years in the making and involves so many of my colleagues from the Accessibility & Disability Section and new friends! The book features 22 chapters relating to accessibility and disability in the archival profession, whether it is disabled researchers encountering the archives or disabled archivists about existing within the profession. We are thrilled to have a foreword written by disability rights activist Alice Wong. We hope this book is a starting point for much other further discussion and advancement on these topics. 

Final question, a fun one! What inspires you? What is next for you?

There is so much to learn, both in terms of standards and the innovative work that colleagues are doing. Alice Wong’s work on the Disability Visibility Project is so impactful. The ongoing work of Dr. Gracen Brilmyer with the Disability Archives Lab is groundbreaking in the field.

I’m currently working on earning certification through the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP). I earned the Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies certification last year and am working on polishing my expertise in the nuts and bolts of implementing accessibility improvements for web and document accessibility.