Imperial War Museums

Can you help us create more accessible heritage collections?

IWM has over 1 million digital objects online, ranging from gas masks to paintings. At the moment, none of these have alt-text, or have any other information that can be understood by screen readers. The Accessible Pasts, Equitable Futures project is trying to make these more accessible to disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent users, and we need your help.

How?

This is a remote role and there are no set hours so you can take part flexibly around your schedule. Ideally, we ask you try to commit approximately 30 minutes per week to the project between May and mid-August 2025. This includes training time. What this looks like in practice is completely up to you – you might do more volunteering time one week and less another.

There is relevant role related training to undertake before your role begins (approximately 4 hours in total). This will be a mix of live Zoom calls (which will be recorded), and self-guided training to happen between May and June.

Click here to read the full role specification. 

Who

We are looking for volunteers who are passionate about accessibility. An interest in IWM’s collections would be an advantage, but not essential. We are looking for people who can make considered judgements about describing historical items. We are also looking for people who are happy with taking their time to create high quality descriptions. We will provide full training. You will need to be age 18 or over to volunteer for this role.

Typical activities

There will be two volunteer routes you can choose from in this project:

• Text-based: you will create alt-text and long descriptions.
• Audio-focused: you will create narrative audio descriptions of collection items.

We will ask you to start by focusing on one of these routes, but you will be able to take the training for both, and can switch the type of tasks you do mid-way through the project if you wish to.

The CLOSING DATE to apply is Monday 21 April at 9am.