Reading & Accessibility

Listening to Academic Content via Library Databases

While library databases tend to be document and text oriented, some platforms include text-to-speech capability. For example, EBSCO and Gale products provide built-in read aloud and mp3 download options for full-text articles available in HTML format. Other databases may provide file formats that are ADA accessible and can be read aloud by Adobe Acrobat. 

Consult the list below to learn more about text-to-speech tools and file formats in popular library database platforms at Holy Cross. 

EBSCO

EBSCO databases have built-in text to speech capability for HTML publications.

Instructions for listening:

• In the search results, under the article tiles, use the drop-down menu of Access Options to select Online Full Text.
• Find the option to Listen. 
• You can also download the audio file in MP3 format.

Not all articles in EBSCO databases are available in HTML/Online Full Text format. Some items are provided in PDF, EPUB, and other formats.  Newer PDFs in EBSCO are ADA compliant. EBSCO began providing PDF scans of older publications with an Optical Character Reader (OCR) text layer in September 2004. PDFs uploaded prior to September 2004 may not be readable by a screen reader.

Elsevier

Elsevier does not provide built-in text to speech capability on its platforms. Full-text articles are in multiple formats, including HTML, PDF, etc. HTML content and ADA accessible PDFs can be read aloud by 3rd party software such as Adobe Acrobat. 

Gale

Gale provides built-in text to speech capability for HTML articles.

Instructions for listening:

• In your search results, click on the title on an article and the platform will default to HTML text if it's available.
• Find the option to Listen. 
• You can also download the audio file in MP3 format.

Gale documents that are not available in HTML format, such as primary source documents and images, do not have the built-in option to listen. Not all of Gale PDFs are ADA compliant.

JSTOR

JSTOR does not provide built-in text to speech capability on its platforms. Full-text articles are in PDF format and ADA accessible PDFs can be read aloud by 3rd party software such as Adobe Acrobat. 

ProQuest

The ProQuest platform has a built-in text to speech player that can read many of our documents to you. Documents where the text is contained within an image or PDF cannot be read aloud with this feature.

Instructions for listening:

• In your search results, click on the title on an article.
• The text to speech player appears on the “Full text” tab of a document, below the abstract and above the body of the document.
• Scroll down on the page until you find a grey box with a play icon and click the play button to have the document read aloud.
• You can also download the audio file in MP3 format.