Last updated: June 14, 2023
The links to browse the catalogue are found at the start of the main content of the homepage. To quickly locate this, you can activate the “Skip to main content” link at the beginning of the header.
Alternatively, there is a heading before the browse links, so you can press “H” until you locate the “Browse the Catalogue” heading. If you are using JAWS, you can instead press “Q” to jump to the start of the main content.
This section doesn’t contain links to browse by genres, such as biography, fantasy, or romance, as you might be used to. Instead, there are links to explore new books or browse various collections. Links to certain collections of recent or upcoming content will also be displayed on the homepage without you having to bring up and scroll through the complete list. You can also browse the “Always Available” category without an account.
Once you open a link to a category or collection, the books it contains will be displayed. This will be within the page's main content, so you can press the “Skip to main content” link at the top to find it quickly. JAWS users can also press “Q” to accomplish the same thing. Each book’s entry will contain its title, author, and summary, followed by links to download the book in each available format. Each format will also list its file size and, if it is an audio format, the duration and the narrator. The title links to the book's record page if you want more information about the book before downloading it.
Google Chrome will display all of the books within a list element. JAWS and NVDA users can press “I” to move from list item to list item; if you are not interested in the title you hear, you can press I again without listening to the rest of the book’s details. This works a little better with JAWS because NVDA moves to the download links in the nested lists while pressing “I,” whereas JAWS skips them, meaning NVDA users press “I” twice to advance to the next book. Safari does not recognize the books as being in a list, but all the information and links are accessible. VoiceOver users can press “L” or the down arrow to move from link to link, then press the right arrow after hearing a title they are interested in to explore the details of that title.
Up to 20 books will be shown at a time. If the selected category or collection features more than 20 books, pagination controls after the list will let you view another page of results. A heading with the text “Pages” is right before the controls, making them easy to jump to by pressing “H.” Links are labelled with a page number or a word describing which page they lead to.