CELA – Centre for Equitable Library Access Collection

Elgin County Library offers a collection of nearly 500,000 books, magazines, newspapers and described videos in a choice of accessible formats for people with a print disability through CELA.

• Enjoy a full range of subjects, genres, classics and award winners
• Select from favourites for kids, teens, and adults
• Stay up to date with 50 newspapers and 150 magazines
• Choose your preferred format: audio, e-text or braille.
• Download books or receive home delivery by mail 

Eligibility
Access to the CELA collection is available to people who are unable to read conventional print due to a disability, which includes:

• Learning disability: an impairment relating to comprehension
• Physical disability: the inability to hold or manipulate a book
• Visual disability: severe or total impairment of sight or the inability to focus or move one’s eyes.

How to sign up for CELA
Sign up for CELA service with your public library card, or contact your local library for assistance.

Access to the collection is offered in a number of ways:

• Download books to your computer or mobile device, such as an iPhone
• Download books to a DAISY player
• Receive audio CDs, Braille or described movies through your local library or by mail directly to your home.

The CELA website can be found at: www.celalibrary.ca

Bookshare
Bookshare is an accessible online library for people with print disabilities. Learn more about becoming a member.

Large Print Books 

Large print books are available at all Elgin County Library locations. These books feature novels of romance, mystery, adventure, westerns, historical fiction and family sagas as well as non-fiction titles including biographies. 

Audiobooks

If reading or holding books is a challenge, you might want to try having books read to you. Elgin County Library provides a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction audiobooks in digital & CD format. Click here to learn How to Access Audiobooks.

Accessible Formats

Viewing content on the Elgin County Library website in high-contrast is easily available. Simply press the ‘Toggle High Contrast’  button on the right side of the screen to view content in this format. 

To increase the size of text, all modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Edge) incorporate a zoom feature. The shortcut for these browsers is to hold ctrl (cmd on Mac) and press the = key to zoom in, – key to zoom out and ctrl and 0 key to reset text to the default size. You can also hold the ctrl key and mouse wheel (scroll) to zoom in or out.  

Skip links offer the ability to jump to specific sections (such as content, site map or the contact section) and are accessed by pressing the tab key. This feature also enables individuals to browse content of the site without the use of a mouse or in addition with a screen-reader.