By Jana Porter, Reference & Instruction Adjunct Librarian at Borough of Manhattan Community College & Former OER & Open Access Librarian at Eugenio María de Hostos Community College
Before becoming an academic librarian and long before becoming an OER librarian at Eugenio María de Hostos Community College (CUNY) in the Bronx, I completed a Master of Music Theory. Because of my background, I initially felt completely equipped to create alt text for an OER Music textbook that Hostos had adopted for usage in an introductory music education course. Then I discovered through Google that there were some options but no great directions nor standardized formulas for creating music alt text. After only a few hours, the task of providing alt text for 100+ musical examples had quickly become challenging. I’d like to share my solution to this conundrum and a bit of my journey of discovery.
Getting Started
The alt text for my first image was quite detailed: <img alt=”First four measures of Twinkle Twinkle with alternate lyrics verse 2 Baa Baa Black Sheep, and verse 3 ABC song. Treble clef and 4/4 time signature and C Quarter Note, C Quarter Note, G Quarter Note, G Quarter Note, A Quarter Note, A quarter note, G half note, F quarter note, F quarter note, E quarter note, E quarter note, D quarter note, D quarter note, C half note.”>
Then perhaps because of my love for musical analysis, my first attempts for the alt text describing a handful of rhythmic exercises started with spelling out the rhythmic values of notes (eighth note, quarter, etc. and progressed to my developing a shorthand for note values.
Aha Moment – Ask the Community
After an hour of this tedious labor, I had my first “aha moment“ and remembered that library work must always be informed by the community for which we are providing information and services. Therefore, before proceeding with my project I reached out and received crucial insights from the CCCOER listserv, the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled at the Library of Congress, as well as a couple of friends who are visually impaired (though I don’t have space to share their comments). I’d like to pass along some of these insights to you who labor to make OER accessible for the greater good.
Community Feedback
The first response to my post on the CCCOER Listserv and stated that
To try to explain notation in text for a screen-reading program just takes it farther away from what it’s supposed to represent.
Paul Bond, SUNY Broome Community College
Though my experimenting with a system to notate rhythms had been fun for the music theorist in me, this comment really resonated as I recalled my history of music notation class where we followed the progression from the Guidonian Hand to the current five-line staff system.
Another response to my post was from Kaela Parks, Director of Disability Services-Portland Community College, who shared their best practices:
- Provide MusicXML or MIDI files for the music notation,
- Include brief alt text, and when needed, link to a longer description in an appendix or resources folder
- If possible provide braille ready files and tactile graphic ready files.”
She followed up with my request for an example of MusicXML and mentioned a scanning software with optical character recognition called SharpEye, which will export MusicXML or MIDI formats from a source file that includes music notation as an image format. Portland Community College, which offers many accessibility resources, usually just creates their own music examples with a Midi controller and Finale; however, for schools with fewer resources/staff, I (Jana) think SharpEye may be worth checking out, especially if one has an extensive music-focused OER.
Karen Gearreald, a contractor and volunteer advisor for the Music Section of the Library of Congress confirmed in her emails much of Portland Community College’s best practice, though not the writing of long alt text descriptions.
What I can say for sure is that a music textbook is most accessible to visually impaired readers if it is transcribed into braille. The literary portions of the book would be transcribed in Unified English Braille; the musical examples would be transcribed according to the 2015 braille music code of BANA, the Braille Authority of North America. . . In short, it is important to realize that visually impaired readers, like all other readers, vary greatly in skills, interests, and goals. As you say, it is probably unnecessary for you to spend ‘hours and hours on creating alt text for the musical examples.’ The example that you mentioned is a case in point: a few lines of braille or a simple audio recording would probably be much more helpful than a ‘very detailed description’ of the melody for “Mary Had a Little Lamb.
Karen Gearreald, a contractor and volunteer advisor for the Music Section of the Library of Congress
This feedback really helped inform my practice, and generally, my music alt text examples became simpler and thus shorter. However, the detail also depended on the context, i.e. basic music concepts from the beginning of the textbook, which were didactic and laid a groundwork for advanced concepts, still seemed to dictate a more detailed alt text than the complete songs which were included in later chapters. The alt text below is one of these simpler examples. (I even got to insert a bit of my expertise by describing the song’s long-short rhythmic pattern.)
In conclusion,
I hope that this post has shared not only a product and an alt text solution to an OER music textbook but a potential process as well. As we endeavor to make OER more accessible, we can’t forget to ask for input from those for whom we are working so tirelessly. Our efforts should be more than checking a box to avoid a lawsuit. Furthermore, we must try to share our accessibility work. I did in fact attempt to inform the original creator about the existence of Hostos’ alt text version of her text; yet after no response, it seems likely that she and others who adopt this text will have to reinvent the wheel or accept an inaccessible version. Of course, our written words in an alt text won’t readily replace a sound file nor a centuries-old notation system, but I do believe the alt text solution to this OER will be at least a starting point for an individual who is visually impaired. If you happen to create midi or braille files for this text, can you share your materials with Hostos? After all, what is OER if we don’t share our work in order to establish a more equitable and democratic learning environment?
Featured Image by Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay