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Today's rapidly evolving digital publishing ecosystem offers a wealth of new modes
in which to disseminate publications, documents and other information - in print,
as ebooks or apps and online. This presents opportunities that can be especially
valuable to institutional publishers (including government agencies, political, trade
and charitable associations and other organizations that publish content but are
not commercial publishers). It enables them to provide information that is more
up-to-date, more dynamic, more interconnected and more accessible than ever
before. But it also presents challenges that require rethinking and sometimes
reengineering traditional systems and practices.

A new proposal from the European Commission calls for a "Digital Single Market Strategy" which would remove many of the digital and practical trade barriers between EU member nations and combine Europe's piece-meal national markets into a single EU-wide digital market.

If this works out then it could help solve one of the goals Europe has been working towards since 1957.

Buzzfeed has gathered images of the most awe-inspiring, quirky, and just plain cool bookstores throughout the world. If you haven't visited these bookstores yet, you should definitely consider making a special trip. An international bookstore circuit might be just the way to close out the summer!

The chiefs of Europe's publishing houses will meet today (26th June) in Brussels at a round-table discussion on growing the e-book market set to emphasise the need for e-books to be taxed at the same rate as physical books. UK representatives such as Penguin chief executive John Makinson and Hachette commercial director Richard Kitson will join publishers including Riccardo Cavallero of Mondadori, Stefano Mauri of Mauri Spagna and Rudiger Salat of Holtzbrink Verlagsgruppe at this morning's discussion, hosted by the Federation of European Publishers and the European Booksellers Federation. Ahead of the event, the FEP and the EBF have

Across most of Europe, e-books are taxed at full national value-added rates, which reach 25 percent in Sweden, Denmark, Hungary and other countries. Printed books, benefiting from an industry lobby, are taxed at a fraction of the full rates — and not at all in Britain.

It seems, Mr. Seaman said, that the value-added tax gap “discourages traditional publishers from innovating by effectively subsidizing them not to.”

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