The Online Library tries to make sure that all of our patrons can make the most of our resources. This page has information on how to make reading articles and books in the Online Library easier.
If you are looking for details on the accessibility of the Online Library website (onlinelibrary.london.ac.uk), please see our website accessibility page.
Text-to-Speech
Many devices have in-built settings to read text aloud, and internet browsers usually have text-to-speech plug-ins you can install. Some Online Library databases have in-built options for text-to-speech:
- Cambridge Core: when reading some books online, you can click on the book / headphone icon in the top right of the page to play the text on each page.
- EBSCO databases such as Academic Search Complete and Business Source Premier: when reading an article in HTML format, there is a 'Listen' button.
- ProQuest databases such as ABI/INFORM Global and International Newsstream: there is a 'Listen' button at the top of full text documents.
- VLeBooks: when reading a book online, there is a 'Read aloud' button at the top of the page.
Downloaded E-books
You can read books downloaded from VLeBooks and E-Book Central using some free software called Adobe Digital Editions. See our How can I download e-books? page for more information.
Adobe Digital Editions can be used with the text-to-speech tools JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver. See the 'Accessibility' section on Adobe's Get Started with Adobe Digital Editions page for more information.
Downloaded Articles
You can download almost all articles in the Online Library as PDFs. Adobe Acrobat Reader has accessibility features, see Adobe's accessibility features page for details.
If you open a PDF in Microsoft Edge, you will see a 'Read aloud' option at the top.
If you need any help, please contact the Online Library enquiry service.