Kirjastojärjestelmä ja verkkosivusto

When it comes to accessibility, there is no better champion in Finland than Celia—which operates under the Ministry of Education and Culture and was formerly known as the Library for the Blind. During our long-standing collaboration, which has continued since 2014, G-Works has had the opportunity to leave its mark on many aspects of Celia’s digital and other communications.

Celia’s website and the Celianet library service serve thousands of people every day for whom reading a standard book is difficult. Of all the fiction and non-fiction published in Finland, Celia produces approximately 30% in an accessible format. The Celianet collection includes approximately 50,000 titles that can be listened to directly online.

In this article, we’ll focus specifically on the overhaul of the library system and the website.

When Celia and G-Works first discussed a partnership in 2014, website accessibility was still a new concept, and the EU’s Accessibility Directive was still seen as a distant prospect. Celia, formerly the library for the blind, had shifted its strategy and wanted to bring its services closer to users and strengthen its collaboration with the Finnish library sector.

Since Celia is also an expert organization, it wanted its services to serve as a model for how accessible online services should be implemented.

It was decided to implement the electronic services primarily using the WordPress content management system because of its ease of maintenance. It should be noted that in 2014, the use of WordPress in government was still relatively rare, and Celia, as a small agency, dared to be a pioneer in this area.

The library system was implemented such that user and collection data were imported into the system via an API from a separate library system, Axiell’s Aurora, but everything outside of that was implemented using WordPress to allow for customization. The decision was made to use WordPress where it excels and a dedicated library system where it excels.

Toward the end of the project, Celia commissioned an external auditor to conduct an accessibility audit of its services, and based on the findings, technical accessibility was further improved. Even after the initial project, the Celianet service has undergone accessibility audits at regular intervals, and the site’s accessibility has been further improved based on the results of these audits.

As part of the project, Celia’s logo and visual identity were also redesigned. The goal of the new look was to move away from an overly bureaucratic appearance and emphasize an organization that is both approachable and highly modern. Celia’s slogan was refined to reflect its current operating model—Celia is “accessibly with you.”

Since its initial launch in 2015, the Celia website and the Celianet service have continued to be developed to meet the challenges of the times. Over the years, numerous new features have been added to the Celianet service, and its accessibility has been—and will continue to be—constantly improved. Celian has become an important driving force for G-Works in the implementation of accessible web services.