Accessibility Statement

Principles

At Brepols, our mission is to ensure that our publications reach the broadest possible audience. Accessibility is central to this goal. We are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where everyone can benefit from and engage fully with our content and services.
To achieve this, we aim for compliance with key accessibility regulations, including:

  • European Accessibility Act (2025)
  • Americans with Disabilities Act, Title II (2026)

To meet these requirements, we follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), aiming for Level AA compliance. These internationally recognized guidelines form the foundation of many legal and regulatory frameworks worldwide and represent best practices for digital accessibility.
We prioritize developing our own technology, tools, and workflows wherever possible. This approach ensures that our solutions are optimized for the unique requirements of publishing in the humanities.

Accessible eBooks and eJournals

All new eBooks and eJournal issues published since July 2025 are available as PDF, and a considerable number as reflowable HTML full text, designed to work with screen readers and other assistive technologies. The majority are fully produced in-house by our own team. These titles include the following accessibility features:

  • Semantic markup of all structural elements (e.g., titles, headings, paragraphs, footnotes)
  • Navigation features
  • MathML for formulas
  • If alt text is missing, clear captions or context within the text are provided

Certain publications, especially those including critical text editions, art historical research, numismatics, or archaeological studies, require complex layouts, multilingual scripts, multiple footnote apparatuses, considerable amounts of images, which is typical and essential to scholarly publishing in the humanities. While we strive to follow best practices, some accessibility features may be limited due to content complexity for these titles and no reflowable HTML full text will be available for those titles.

Currently, all backlist e-content is provided as PDF. All books allow chapter-level PDF downloads, and many also offer a full PDF download. Some titles may include HTML full text, but not all accessibility features might be available. Most backlist titles do not yet fully meet the WCAG 2.1 Level AA standard. However, we make reasonable efforts to accommodate accessibility requests on a case-by-case basis.

All titles purchased directly from BrepolsOnline are DRM-free with no restrictions for screen reading or other assistive technologies. 

Our Commitment

We are actively working to enhance the accessibility of our publications and understand that continued efforts are essential to meet the needs of all users.

Ongoing initiatives are the development of production workflows & author guidelines for author-written or approved alt text and the further inclusion of accessibility metadata for our publications in ONIX feeds, to be shared with all our partners in the supply chain. We are scoping the aspects of backlist conversion to bring it up to WCAG’s AA level of accessibility.

We welcome your feedback while we make progress with these initiatives. Please let us know if you encounter any barriers when using our e-content.

Distributed Titles

In addition to our own titles, we distribute content on behalf of smaller publishers. Some of these publishers are exempt from certain accessibility requirements due to their size under applicable regulations.

While we encourage all partners to adopt accessibility best practices, these distributed titles may not fully comply with WCAG 2.1 Level AA or other accessibility standards. We will provide accessibility information where available and handle reader requests on a case-by-case basis.

BrepolsOnline – eBook & eJournals Platform

Our eBook & eJournals platform, BrepolsOnline.net, is powered by Ingenta and fully complies with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA standards.

A Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) will be available upon request shortly, providing detailed information about our platform’s accessibility features and compliance.

Brepolis - Databases

The following Brepolis databases are compliant with WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards:

  • All bibliographies
  • Library of Latin Texts
  • Database of Latin Dictionaries (*with the exception of the Du Cange dictionary)

VPATs (Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates) are available upon request for these resources.

Accessibility Roadmap

By April 2026, we aim to be compliant with the following databases:

  • All encyclopaedias
  • Archive of Celtic-Latin Literature
  • Aristoteles Latinus Database
  • Monumenta Germaniae Historica
  • Sources Chrétiennes Online

Additional databases and further improvements will follow in subsequent phases.
The following databases will only be partially accessible due to their inherent complexity and specialized scholarly requirements:

  • Patriologia Orientalis Database (*scan-based images for source texts, otherwise scheduled to be accessible by April 2026)
  • Répertoire des traductions françaises des Pères de l’Église
  • Vetus Latina Database

Brepols.net

Our corporate website, Brepols.net, is currently undergoing updates to ensure full compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA.
This process reflects our commitment to creating an inclusive and accessible digital environment for all users.
We will publish an updated accessibility statement once the implementation is complete. In the meantime, we welcome feedback on any accessibility barriers you may encounter.

Contact & Remedy

We are committed to ensuring that our complete environment meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA standards. Accessibility is an ongoing process, and we continuously review and improve our practices in line with evolving standards and publishing technologies.

If you encounter any accessibility issues while navigating our websites or using our content, we welcome your feedback and will make every reasonable effort to address concerns promptly.
We also monitor developments in accessibility tools and standards and update our workflows wherever feasible.

If you experience difficulties accessing our content or would like to request a specific format, please contact us at: 
Ms Liesbeth Boonen - Accessibility: Liesbeth.boonen@brepols.net

This statement was last reviewed and updated on January  7, 2026