#83: Make sure your vendors do their part

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There is such a thing as a ‘voluntary product accessibility template’ (VPAT) that is sometimes part of a contract between a library system and a vendor that sells databases. A VPAT documents a technology’s current conformance (or lack thereof) with accessibility standards. Advocate for your library system to make it policy that all vendor contracts include a VPAT, or some other language that states what a vendor’s commitment to accessibility is. Even better, advocate for policy to be that all vendors must comply with a certain accessibility standard in order for the library to do business with them at all.