AMELib (Accessible Multi-modal Electronic Library) was created in 2015 by the Association of Greek Academic Libraries (SEAB) at the initiative of the Library of Panteion University.
AMELib – Multimodal Electronic Library Collection of Accessible Books (seab.gr)
AMELib was funded by the Operational Program “Digital Convergence” in the framework of the project “Advanced, Central Services of Open Access Digital Libraries S.E.A.B.” and was a key deliverable of action 9.7 of Subproject 9 “Value Added Services for Libraries and Information Services, Other Agencies and End Users”.
Within the framework of the Hellenic Academic Libraries Association (SEAV), the Cooperative Network of Accessible Bibliography Holders has been established on the basis of the new Program Agreement for the “Establishment of the Hellenic Academic Libraries Association”. Only the bodies responsible for the reproduction of works in an accessible format participate in the Collaborative Network.
The purpose of AMELib and the Cooperative Network is to provide accessible books to the print-disabled users of the Network. A document-disabled person is called one who is not able to read independently, without any other human or technical assistance, from printed material. The definition of disability includes people who are blind, visually impaired, deaf, have dyslexia or other learning disabilities, have upper extremity disabilities, etc. According to the World Health Organization, this affects 10% of the population of each country.
In recent years, AMELib has grown steadily in both the number of accessible book titles and the number of beneficiary users, mainly students. In order to strengthen the effort to remove the barriers for the print-disabled users of the Greek academic libraries, our catalog consists mainly of taught books and its collection today reaches 2,385 titles and 5,483 different accessible formats: text files in PDF format, Word , Daisy, ePUB and audio files.
| File type | Number |
| 2169 | |
| docx, doc | 1575 |
| epub | 848 |
| Daisy books | 204 |
| Sound files (mp3) | 192 |
| Sound files (wav) | 30 |
The contribution of the Panteion University Library to the development of AMELib is significant, as shown in the chart below in December 2020.
And November 2021, as the table below shows, has contributed the most registrations and accessible formats.
At the same time, AMElib has posted guides for creating accessible formats, as well as information on the use of accessibility tools.