Editor’s Note: Today’s post is by László Simon-Nanko. László is Head of Sales and Customer Service and Key Account Manager International at the humanities publisher Mohr Siebeck, where he has worked since 2016. In his role, he has helped drive forward the topic of open access for books and journals. 

Much of the ongoing discussion around the European Accessibility Act (EAA) focuses on strategic workflows, vendor collaboration, and incremental progress. A recent article in The Scholarly Kitchen asked, “What has been the most challenging aspect of achieving EAA compliance for your organization, and how have you been addressing it?“

But from the perspective of a traditional, mid-sized academic publisher in the humanities—like my employer, Mohr Siebeck in Germany—some of the real and structural problems receive remarkably little attention. While large international players showcase well-resourced compliance roadmaps, many in the European publishing landscape are facing a more sobering reality:  legal ambiguities, economic limits, and structural mismatches between regulatory goals and scholarly publishing practices. This is particularly true for long-established, specialized publishers whose catalogues are shaped by linguistic, historical, and archaeological complexity. In this response, we would like to contribute a grounded perspective from outside the Anglo-American mainstream—one that questions some of the assumptions behind current narratives and calls for a more realistic view of what compliance can and cannot achieve.

Are journals part of the EAA?

A big mismatch seems to be the perception of whether journal articles fall under the EAA. For Germany, the question was clearly answered by the legislator:  No. The German Publishers and Booksellers Association clearly states in its FAQ: “The Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz only stipulates that e-books must be accessible. There is no mention of newspapers and journals.” This is causing a lot of resentment, especially among small book publishers, who see a clear disparity here with the large, more magazine-based publishers. One major problem, however, will be the expectations of libraries:  If this point is handled differently from country to country and publisher to publisher, the simplicity and clarity of use that was intended will be ruined. No one will know exactly whether something is accessible or not.

Nevertheless, some major players in the industry are creating the image that they are covered by the regulation in order to position themselves as “compliant pioneers” — this creates political and economic pressure on smaller publishers who also publish journals. This highlights a clear weakness of the EAA in the international scientific context: implementation, control, and sanctions of the EAA lie with 27 member states — each with their own regulations and procedures.

Accessibility of the backlist not economically feasible

Many smaller but long-established academic publishers have extensive backlists, in the digitization of which considerable funds have already been invested over the years to make them accessible for research and teaching in e-book format. A subsequent, comprehensive, barrier-free processing of these titles is—realistically speaking—simply not economically viable for many of these publishers, either in the short or long term. Internal calculations by various providers show that this can easily result in costs in the seven-figure range, at least—a sum that is beyond what smaller structures can manage. Although gradual implementation is beginning in many places, it is becoming apparent that this will be a process that cannot be completed in the long term.

The German Publishers and Booksellers Association has also commented on this: “The wording ”erbracht werden“ in the German legislation can therefore also be understood to refer only to the new publication of e-books, i.e., to e-books that are new or published by the publisher in an updated version from June 28, 2025,” and “Publishers should therefore check for themselves individually to what extent it is technically feasible for them to convert the backlist (possibly also gradually and depending on the success of a title) and assess the legal risk for themselves.” Unfortunately, this also speaks for completely incomplete legislation, which will ultimately be corrected by the courts.

It can be assumed that mandatory accessibility for the entire digital program, including the backlist, would mean that scientifically relevant backlist works could no longer be offered digitally in the future — a loss that would ultimately reduce accessibility instead of improving it. Complete accessibility will therefore remain sporadic in this segment in the long term.

Complexity of content in humanities works

There are a whole range of specialist disciplines whose works contain highly complex content, such as tabular representations of extinct languages, non-Latin writing systems (cuneiform, hieroglyphics), transcriptions, and transliterated texts. And this is just a selection from the historical and linguistic sciences. In archaeology, antiquity, and epigraphy, titles often consist largely of plates, maps, and images — for which meaningful accessible preparation would be unreasonable. In addition, many of these illustrations and books are still produced today in so-called self-typesetting, i.e., the authors typeset them themselves and the publisher then incorporates them.

It is simply not feasible to demand accessibility here, as the authors lack the know-how and the volume of material to be made accessible is unmanageable. In addition, despite much discussion, there is still no clear line on how to deal with such cases in accessibility. My thesis would be that in the end it will be dealt with by the most succinct descriptions, at least I couldn’t have imagined making it truly accessible for my archaeological master’s thesis, which dealt with around 14,000 fragments of sherds.

Lack of demand on the part of libraries — proven and functioning practice is being displaced

The question also arises as to whether there is an increased need for certain types of accessibility in the academic context. The dbv‘s (Deutsche Bibliotheksverband / German Library Association) Commission for Acquisitions and Collection Development believes that the acquisition behavior of (German) academic libraries is difficult to reconcile with the requirements. Academic libraries currently do not systematically check e-book offerings for accessibility, if only because acquisitions are usually made in large package solutions. However, demand is also primarily based on academic needs and not on technical criteria — a key point in practice. It is simply not possible to refuse a researcher an e-book just because it is not accessible. In addition, the ordering process often lacks the means to reliably assess compliance with legal requirements.

Publishers have already worked successfully with special libraries and service centers in the past when accessible versions were required in individual cases. We received such requests for our publications about 1-2 times a year, which we were happy to handle. This cooperative, demand-oriented solution was efficient, accepted, and functional — it is now being replaced by a blanket and expensive obligation. This clearly exceeds the EAA’s objective: Legal requirements are being created without a factual need on the buyer side.

Loss of cost-saving production structures—price increases for institutions are unavoidable

The current design of the legal requirements for accessibility leads to uncertainty among many stakeholders. Some of the regulations seem undifferentiated, difficult to understand, and rely on bureaucratic procedures that are difficult to implement in practice. At the same time, proven and economically efficient production processes — such as author typesetting or simplified layout processes — are coming under pressure. Smaller publishers in particular could be forced to resort to costly external service providers, outsource services, or even refrain from publishing certain titles in individual cases.

The production of accessible e-books causes considerably higher costs. Mohr Siebeck, for example, has therefore decided to increase its prices for institutional customers from 2026 and to apply a 2x factor (previously 1:1 compared to the print price), as otherwise it will no longer be possible to cover production costs.

Ultimately, the current legislation on accessibility—for all its justified objectives—in its current form primarily leads to rising costs on all sides: for service providers, publishers, authors, and not least for the acquiring institutions and researchers. The actual added value of these regulations remains questionable, at least in German-speaking countries, as functioning and demand-oriented structures for the production of accessible content had already been established.

What now?

Time will tell. Despite the many discussions, many publishers ultimately feel completely let down by the advocates of accessibility. It is foreseeable that various regulations will have to be decided by the courts in one way or another. It would be better for the legislators to sit down once again and correct the glaring gaps in terms of rational and practicable regulations, which is unlikely, however. An end to the discussion or even a clarification of the points in question is not in sight.