the publisher's point of view in italy cristina mussinelli - associazione italiana editori 2nd...
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The publisher's point of view in Italy
Cristina Mussinelli - Associazione Italiana Editori
2nd European eAccessibility Forum Accessible e-books: an opportunity for the
disabledParis - 28 January 2008
Associazione Italiana Editori AIE is the trade association of Italian publishers –
and foreign publishers operating in Italy – of books, magazines and digital publishing products.
It belongs to Confindustria (the General Confederation of Italian Industry).
With about 420 members, AIE covers over 90% of the Italian book market.
All market segments in publishing are represented: fiction and non fiction, academic and professional, schoolbooks
The actual situation The scarcity of accessible titles in any
publishing sector (fiction, non fiction, educational, etc.) is still high
There are a lot of efforts but the results are not as satisfying as desired
There are many actors involved: Publishers Suppliers (prepress companies, graphic designers, printer,
etc.) Specialist organization Conversion companies…
Many are small medium companies
The publishers’ positionPublishers are aware of the importance to
provide accessible content, guaranteeing equal opportunity
but…
they need to guarantee the respect of therights of rights holders and to save the
investment done, avoiding thepossible illegal use or misuse of copyrighted
content
Reasons for publishers to embrace accessibility? Good will and social responsibility Accessibility law Possibility to reach new markets or
to better serve already existing markets
Optimize production workflows Return on investment in new
digital market
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Existing agreements and new requests… For the educational materials, in 2001 AIE signed a framework
agreement with the Italian Library for Blinds (Biblioteca Italiana per i ciechi “Regina Margherita” – ONLUS) in Monza and the Italian Blinds Union (Unione Italiana Ciechi – ONLUS) in Roma.The agreement foresees that AIE create awareness among Italian publishers in order to provide the Biblioteca with the files of schoolbooks. The Biblioteca will then create the Braille, enlarged characters or digital versions, depending on the user’s request.
The cost for the adaptations and conversions are covered both by state and local funding.
Recently many others associations representing visual impaired people asked to sign similar agreement.
At the same time the Association of Dyslexic people had signed single agreements with some publishers to provide digital files directly to single students.
In 2007 AIE had also been contacted by the CNUDD, a organization helping students with disabilities to attend courses in Universities.
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more titles available in accessible version, possibly in a quantity similar to the mainstream production
more requests of many different versions: digital files, enlarged characters or audio versions
more timely availability, possibly at the same time of the mainstream production: exit in bookstore for fiction and non fiction beginning of school year for educational materials
Emerging requests
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Emerging problems The specification and standards to create accessible content are
not needed to create traditional paper books (the real market for publishing industry yet)
Increasing growth of the request both from individuals with disabilities and from associations
difficulties in managing these so many different requests difficulties in providing the files of so many titles, depending on
different reasons: technical problems (i.e. the files are not available or easily available,
the files are not usable, the files are not updated, etc) the process is still costly and time consuming authors and publishers fear that their rights could not be respected or
be misused in case of use of digital files in the case of educational material the number of titles is very
high, and the requests are concentrated in a very short period (May/September)
27/11/2006
How to maximize the process?
Conversion and
adaptation process or/and
integration into the
mainstream workflow
?
garbage in = garbage out
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Collaboration among publishers, suppliers and specialist organisations?
End users
Accessible versions
• Braille version
• enlarged characters
• file for Braille keyboard and/or screen reader
• eBook
• file for vocal synthesizer
• audiobooks/Daisy/MP3
• more…
• publishers
• DTP suppliers
Conversion process
• Specialist organisations
trust and shared knowledge
Actual
Publishing sector relatively involved
Suspiciousness among the different actors involved
Jeopardized efforts Jeopardized funding Different catalogues and
distribution channels A lot of small projects often
based on good will and voluntary services
Future? Direct involvement of the
publishing sector Strong collaboration with
specialist organizations Harmonization of funding
and control on return on investment
Integration in mainstream channels
Coordinated efforts within an organic strategy with clear measurable objectives
Technological innovation
Standard and interoperability
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The Italian proposalAIE is proposing to institutions (Ministry ofEducation and Ministry of Cultural Heritage) thecreation of a unique point of access, managed bythe Italian Publishers’ Association, but with avery strong involvement of all the otherstakeholders:
disable people associations,
Ministries’ representatives,
Specialist Organizations’ representatives.
Role and responsability Manage all the relationships among the stakeholders and
organizations now involved in the process
Create an online library with the catalogue of already existing accessible titles and offering the possibility to request for other titles on demand
Coordinate the production process of accessible contents, optimizing the process and avoiding duplications, in collaboration with the organizations actually involved
Set up and maintain the technological infrastructure
Collect and manage all the request of accessible titles and manage all the relationships with the publishers to create the catalogue and satisfy the requests on demand
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The direct involvement of publishers may:
increase the availability of accessible versions both as quantity of titles as variety of offer in the different market segments
optimize the production processes actually in place to produce accessible versions : speeding up the time needed to produce them reducing the conversion cost
guarantee to rights holders the control of management, storage and correct use of digital files
improve accessibility of educational content for visually impaired people
disseminate the best practices andguidelines stemming from the results of two
previous EU funded projects: ORMEE and EUAIN
increase the possibility for visually impaired people involvedin any educational process to access course material on a timelybasis, especially as digital files, that can easily be used with PC
The ProAccess objective
More in details… raise awareness in the publishing market on:
new EU legislation technological possibility to easily make accessible materials
support the content producers in the process of adoption of a workflow aimed at creating, from the beginning of the production process, digital structured content that can easily be converted in accessible materials for disadvantaged people
create a set of guidelines – possibly ISO 9001 compliant – to produce accessible educational digital content in a standard way
help players along the value chain to solve legal and copyright issues with the adoption of licensing models and contracts to be signed between rights holders, final users and possible intermediaries
Sinergies with i2010 Digital library initiative: the Arrow project A new project short listed in the last call of eContentplus
in the digital library Aimed at creating a rights information infrastructure
moving towards a more inclusive digital library, according with the i2010 Digital Library initiative
The project will start addressing the problem of interoperability along the whole value chain of digital libraries as far as rights information and other content metadata are concerned.
It will produce guidelines on applicable standards for content identification and description, and for technical interoperability, to enhance interoperability between public and private digital content collections
Project partners AIE - Associazione Italiana Editori BNF - Bibliothèque Nationale de France IFRRO - International FEP - Federation of European Publishers BL – British Library NUK - Narodna in Univerzitetna Knijznica BNE – Biblioteca Nacional de Espana DNB – Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Germany MVB – Marketing und Verlagsservice des Buchhandels FGEE – Federación de Gremios de Editores de Espana NUMILOG France CINECA – Consorzio Interuniversitario per il Calcolo Automatico dell'Italia
Nord Orientale CLA - Copyright licensing Agency NLN - National Library of Norway UIBK - Universität Innsbruck
