punctum books is a scholar-led and community-led open access (OA) press. We believe that the question of accessibility to knowledge should be at the core of scholarly publishing, which is meant to pay benefits to society in the form of shared knowledge. For us, this question is addressed, first, at a broad scale through global open access itself — making scholarly research freely available to the public that funds the majority of that research as well as to those with no means to do so. Before any considerations of the technical aspects of particular accessibility features of specific publication formats can be assessed and implemented, with an eye toward making more books accessible to visually impaired readers, the greatest inequity is the current inaccessibility of most of the scholarly record to the general public. Questions over the accessibility of academic research are inextricably linked to broader questions of equity and bibliodiversity, require intersectional approaches, and can never be solved by mere adherence to singular pieces of legislation.

punctum books was established as a design-forward and print-forward publishing house. This means we are committed to the importance of the book as an artistic print object with a special, bespoke attention to matters such as typography and page design. Many of our publications employ deliberate forms of specialized text formatting, multilingualism, and non-textual elements that may be challenging to render or translate into other media. Historically, our OA ebooks have been PDF analogues of our print books, but we are currently committed to making our publications as more accessible for disabled readers, so we are implementing a separate, additional workflow to produce OA EPUBs of our publications, to be issued alongside our print books and PDF analogs. Rather than trying to marginally and incrementally improve on the PDF editions, produced in a digital format that was explicitly designed to be an analog to print, we believe that EPUB and related XML formats provide the best way forward to comply with legal accessibility requirements. We are therefore in the process of implementing EPUB editions as the primary accessible format for our titles.

We are working toward compliance with the following accessibility standards and legislation for our digital publications and website:

In this process are we are collaborating with our library partners, kindred presses at ScholarLed, and the Open Book Collective:

Download our Voluntary Product Accessibility Template Version 2.5rev (International Edition) here.

This page will be regularly updated as we implement our accessibility roadmap over the next few years.

Publication Accessibility

Formats

Our primary accessible publication format is EPUB. Our print and PDF publications have limited accessibility features.

Print

Our paperbound publications are available via all major online bookstores and are distributed to independent US bookstores via Asterism Books. Non-US bookstores order our print books directly through us. Our print books do not have any additional accessibility features.

PDF

All of our PDFs are analogs of our print books. They are available for free as OA publications. The link to the PDF can be accessed via the book’s webpage on the punctum books website and, as many web browsers have built-in PDF viewers, a separate PDF reader application may not be required to access the book. If the browser will not open the PDF or more advanced accessibility features are required, then we recommend downloading and installing a free PDF reader application such as Adobe Acrobat Reader. Detailed guidelines on using Adobe’s accessibility features are available on their website: Accessibility features.

Additionally, our PDF titles are available via a range of platforms, including OAPEN, JSTOR, Project MUSE, Google Books, EBSCO eBooks, and the Internet Archive. Our OA PDFs are also catalogued and made available to visually impaired readers via RNIB Bookshare.

Most of our PDFs include bookmarks and hyperlinks. They are also DRM-free.

EPUB

As of November 1, 2025, in addition to releasing titles in print and as PDF ebooks, we also publish all new titles in an accessible EPUB edition. They will be made available for free as OA publications, and the link to the EPUB will be accessible via each book’s webpage on the punctum books website by March 2026.

The EPUB versions of our ebooks will be published in EPUB3 format in line with the best practices for accessibility standards, meeting W3C EPUB Accessibility 1.1 and WCAG 2.2 Level AA standards. They include support for non-visual reading and visual adjustments, navigational features, and other accessibility features such as page breaks, alt text, and semantic structure. Our EPUB editions will be Digital Rights Management (DRM)-free, reflowable, and enabled for magnification and customization available in the user’s given reading system.

EPUB versions of back catalog publications can be requested directly via info@punctumbooks.com. We will try to accommodate any request, but we are also bound by the realities of being a small, independent non-profit, and we may not always be able to meet these requests in a rapid manner.

Metadata

Beginning in March 2026, we will distribute publication accessibility metadata in the ONIX records that are sent to various suppliers and vendors in the ebooks supply chain via Thoth Open Metadata. The metadata in our EPUB files is up to date and follows industry best practice and guidance.

Image Descriptions (alternative text/alt text)

Alt text is a short textual description accompanying illustrations and figures in books that is embedded digitally into the image for use in EPUB editions, and is used by assistive technologies (such as screen readers) to convey the type and content of the image to readers with visual impairments who otherwise would not be able to read the standard captions accompanying images in publications. We introduced alt text into our standard publishing workflow in January 2025 and, also beginning in January 2026, all new frontlist books published in the EPUB format will include alt text for images and we will devise long descriptions where necessary for more complex illustrations. We currently require authors to create alt text when they submit their manuscripts for final production, and our editorial team then checks that alt text for quality assurance and revises it as necessary prior to publication.

Licensing

All of our publications, regardless of format (print, PDF, EPUB), are licensed under a Creative Commons license. Most of our publications have a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 International license, but anyone is able to take our publications and use them as a template for producing more accessible versions, as long as they are released under the same license and make attribution to the original creators.

Testing

All of our books, beginning in 2026, will go through detailed accessibility checks in production, both with external suppliers and in-house staff. Our supplier is Benetech-certified, and the EPUBs are currently tested via EPUBcheck 5.3 and Ace (command line version) 1.3.7.

Website Accessibility

We are currently in the process of redesigning our website to be in full compliance with W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 – Level AA standards.

Licensing

Our website text is licensed under a Creative Commons BY 4.0 International license. Metadata are licensed under a Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal license.

Testing

Our website’s accessibility was tested in August 2024 by Pennsylvania State University Library. The report is available here. A number of design issues were identified that will be mitigated in the redesign of our website.

Roadmap

Issue Description	Current Status (Open, Closed, In Progress)	Comments	Timeline
Front list publication accessibility	Closed	We have contracted a third-party provider to create EPUB files of our front list in compliance with W3C EPUB Accessibility 1.1 standards.	November 1, 2025
Website accessibility	In Progress	We are working with third-party providers to fully redesign our website in compliance with W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 – Level AA standards.	March 2026
Back list publication accessibility	Open	Back list publication conversion (up to January 18, 2018) to W3C EPUB Accessibility 1.1– compliant EPUBs.	To be scoped in Summer 2026, until then individual publications available on request.
Accessibility Metadata	In Progress	Inclusion of accessibility metadata in our ONIX records	Currently being implemented by Thoth Open Metadata, completion expected by March 2026.
Author-facing accessibility requirements	In Progress	Inclusion of accessibility guidelines in our Monograph and Edited Collection Guidelines	Implemented by January 2026.

Questions and Feedback

We recognize that improving the accessibility of our publications and digital presence is an ongoing process, and that this is a commitment of the entire team at punctum books. We welcome any questions and feedback via info@punctumbooks.com.

This accessibility statement pertains to the punctumbooks.com website, maintained by punctum books. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

UK

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the “accessibility regulations”). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

This statement was prepared on August 14, 2025. It was last updated on October 15, 2025.