Publishing Standards

The Future of Ebook Annotations Is Near & the Possibilities Are Endless
May 13, 2016 at 2:42 pm

“The typical experience with digital books these days is pretty terrible,” said Dan Whaley, CEO of Hypothes.is, during the opening remarks of an IDPF DigiCon session on Wednesday. “We can read books on a Kindle, tablet, and online and that’s great, but our ability to collaborate with other people while doing that is essentially nonexistent.”…

What the Inventor of the World Wide Web Sees for the Future of Ebooks
May 11, 2016 at 2:38 pm

Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989 with the goal of making content on the internet interoperable and accessible, and today it is the primary way that people access the internet. Berners-Lee, keynote speaker at IDPF DigiCon @ BEA 2016, has a similar vision for the ebook and believes that publishers can…

The Survey Says – Without XML You’re Leaving Money on the Table
May 3, 2016 at 11:00 am

Data Conversion Laboratory (DCL) and the Center for Informational Development (CIDM) asked publishers how they are developing and publishing their content in our 4th annual survey, “Following the Trends.” With close to 350 participants ranging from writers to content strategists, information architects, and publishers, the breadth of knowledge and insight was prodigious. Each year this…

Is Your Metadata Ready for Direct-to-Consumer Marketing?
March 2, 2016 at 11:52 am

In the age of mobile, digital, social, and online shopping, brand and marketing messages are increasingly interpreted and catalogued by computers. As a result, metadata is taking on a new and important role for authors and publishers. It is becoming a crucial foundation for successful direct-to-consumer marketing and discoverability. We all know that content consumption…

How Standards Can Improve Book Discovery & UX in 2016
February 29, 2016 at 2:42 pm

Last week Book Business hosted a free webinar (currently available on-demand) and asked industry experts what trends will shape book publishing in 2016. One of those experts was Kat Meyer, director of content development and acquisition at the Book Industry Study Group (BISG). She said that BISG members are most concerned with improving book discovery…

On Amazon Stores And Publishers Accepting Standardization; Two Unrelated Commentaries
February 11, 2016 at 12:08 pm

When the “Amazon-opening-400-stores” rumor landed a week ago, many people were gobsmacked. It took me a minute to get past that, which also required getting past my firm conviction when they opened the Seattle store last year that it was an information-gathering exercise, not the opening move of a bigger retail play. But, when you…

McGraw-Hill Education's Head of Digital: Future of Education Isn’t Free. It’s Open.
February 1, 2016 at 1:21 pm

Advances in learning science are powering a new generation of technologies that, when used by dedicated teachers, improve student performance and extend learning beyond the confines of the classroom. Digital adaptive learning coupled with an explosion of relatively low-cost learning applications has the potential…

How Publishers Are Making Ebooks More Accessible & Discoverable
October 30, 2015 at 3:27 pm

Last week Book Business hosted a webinar on creating more accessible and discoverable content through improved content architectures and workflows. Publishers are improving book metadata and standards so that both digital and physical books can be found more easily and meet the needs of readers with disabilities. The speakers on the webinar  encouraged publishers to…

How Society Publishers Can Compete Today
September 30, 2015 at 2:19 pm

I wish to describe a situation that I often come across and then try to explain how it came about. What are its implications for scholarly communications and library consortia in particular, and can we project into the future to think about how this situation could evolve? So here is the situation. Please note that…