Publishing Business Group Telco — Minutes

Date: 2019-11-26

Attendees

Present: Ivan Herman, George Kerscher, Tzviya Siegman, Wolfgang Schindler, Wendy Reid, Dave Cramer, Luc Audrain, Jeff Jaffe, Liisa McCloy-Kelley, Jonathan Greenberg, Karen Myers, Avneesh Singh, Julie Blair, Cristina Mussinelli

Regrets: Daihei Shiohama (塩濱大平), Bill Kasdorf

Guests:

Chair: Luc Audrain

Scribe(s): Jeff Jaffe, Ivan Herman, Wendy Reid

1. EPUBcheck fundraising

Luc Audrain: link to W3C fundraising page: https://www.w3.org/publishing/epubcheck_fundraising

Luc Audrain: Wrote to many companies
… new explanatory page on website
… funding not finished
… wrote to European federation of publishers
… hoping for results
… discussions with some specific companies

George Kerscher: Discussions with Avneesh at AB meeting
… IMS Global not likely
… but maybe some of their members
… other companies

Tzviya Siegman: I’ve also reached out to some publishers
… some positive feedback
… Daihei working on Japan companies

Luc Audrain: Taking additional ideas

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: Convincing vendors is good
… also that people should put into their annual budget

Luc Audrain: Answer Linked-In inquiries with requests to fund EPUBcheck

2. Survey on future needs for publishers

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: At the SC, talked about needs for business, EPUB roadmap
… idea of a survey with wide reach
… short term and long term
… Dave, Bill K., and I are working on the survey
… Dave first draft
… multilayer responses

Dave Cramer: I’m outlining subject areas
… need thought on how to get useful info

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: We are hoping to use this to get more connections, more conversations
… timeline early in the year

Jeff Jaffe: more conversation is the heart of the matter
… the team and me personally would be very interested in the conversation

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: How can we collect the audience for the survey
… email addresses, etc.

Tzviya Siegman: Avoid Googledocs; issues in some countries
… Survey Monkey? Is it accessible?
… send to entire BG and CG

George Kerscher: jeff: q+

Tzviya Siegman: our Twitter followers
… Dave’s informal doc has 175 comments about the business model
… are we focused on spec or business model?

Jeff Jaffe: In terms of who should get the survey, at a minimum it should be the membership of the IDPF
… it would be an opportunity to reengage

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: What we are getting out of it is somewhat open-ended
… support for short-term needs for EPUB
… something more that need standards for
… if we see business stuff –> important to put in front of our community
… a new decade
… future of publications for 2020 and beyond!
… launching point

Avneesh Singh: Survey Monkey is accessible; only with simple controls
… avoid GoogleDocs
… outreach to IDPF community
… but remember the history
… more outreach is good
… future? WP?
… bigger leap ahead of EPUB3
… but open-ended

Jeff Jaffe: Back to the question about the scope. To update, we’ve been having conversations about whether EPUB3.2 should go to rec track, there was a lot of strong opinions
… in the conversation we observed that it is hard to make a decision on that when we don’t have a roadmap
… that created a bunch of activities, like Dave with the CG, to define the roadmap
… but not everyone is in the community group and we need to have broader outreach
… let’s look at broader questions
… the inner circle of the highest priority is the EPUB roadmap
… but let’s also look for other things

Wendy Reid: Survey is a good idea
… IDPF community a good place to start
… but as broad as possible
… new markets
… Asia
… India
… Africa
… small publisher
… @@ Draft to digital
… people using EPUB poorly
… conversion houses
… EPUB 2 users
… BUT, not to take a long time
… <1 year of planning
… WG charter ends at 6 months

Tzviya Siegman: +1000 to wendyreid on timeline

Wendy Reid: without a WG - why do we need to exist
… how to justify fees?
… planning mode not good enough

Luc Audrain: Bill K. has an external task force
… tool for a broad population

Jeff Jaffe: Thanks to Wendy for raising the timeline issue
… the critical issue is not when this charter ends, it’s when audiobooks ends
… in the sense where the charter has expired, we can extend it, whether it’s june or september
… if it ends in June, that doesn’t mean we have until June to finish the survey, we have until june to do the survey and review the results
… and get a new charter ready

Garth Conboy: +1 to complete survey ASAP
… existing WG - will complete Audiobooks by end of charter
… not sure that should be driving
… survey may suggest digesting in the CG
… I don’t see urgency for a contrived WG by June
… shouldn’t press for the sake of having a WG.

George Kerscher: Broadest scope survey possible
… Authors
… Higher Ed
… Corporate publishing (e.g. IBM)
… GOvt.

Jonathan Greenberg: +1 to all of these communities

George Kerscher: open educational resources

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: Timing - need to send after the holidays
… late Jan; early Feb
… new year! new decade! what does it mean
… where should we collect list of people to reach out to
… ?

Luc Audrain: Good point.

Wendy Reid: WG got approval to push Audiobooks to CR.
… will move to CR next week
… looking for implementations
… already have Calibrio and Readium
… March for end of CR
… hope to be on schedule
… may be ahead of schedule
… EXCITING!!

Tzviya Siegman: Wearing my AB hat
… but not representing the AB
… we don’t need a new WG
… but by May (Spring AC) we should have a solid plan
… tell people what we are planning to do
… or we fall off the radar
… lose time from our beloved team rep
… could be a SC discussion
… should at least have something on the roadmap
… or we are forgotten
… and look bad
… and will need to beg for Ivan’s time

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: +1 to analyzing data from survey as we get it

Avneesh Singh: We should have a progressive set of surveys
… timeline is tight
… but we should keep the survey open and get more input

Luc Audrain: We will need a task force to process the survey

3. 2020 a new decade

Luc Audrain: We thought 2020 was a good launch year
… focus on accessibility
… social themes: diversity and inclusion
… concern for supply chain
… need for publications and websites

Jeff Jaffe: I think that’s a great point
… new decade new start
… I hope this is in the survey, there’s new regulations in the EU
… we need to bring that regulatory factor in

Cristina Mussinelli: Should we organize an event for accessibility; or incorporate in all events?

Luc Audrain: Next topic
… thought about having an event - futures workshop
… include accessibility

Cristina Mussinelli: Take into consideration

Karen Myers: Remind everyone about TPAC, 26-30 October 2020, Vancouver
… central for Asia and US; little further for Europe
… could have a mini-event

Luc Audrain: +1 to TPAC

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: Future conversations is complementary to survey

Luc Audrain: +1 to ebookcraft

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: so we need to have the survey; decide what we want to do; and continue the conversation at events

4. Audiobook

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: Wendy, is there an opportunity, clean up chapter data
… give them a bridge
… what to do now; what is the future
… people can know what to do; but also when the standard is adopted.

Wendy Reid: We can publish something
… the clearest chapter metadata you can provide, as informative as possible.

Jeff Jaffe: .. I can put data in the spec format so people know what it looks like

Wendy Reid: we want publishers (even experimental)

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: Publishers are pushed to provide chapter data
… no best practices
… e.g. section and parts called out
… consistency
… In PRH we are doing it in spreadsheets
… will be different in standard
… some are doing nothing until the standard
… or doing their own thing
… then they won’t revise per the standard

Wendy Reid: No easy answer

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: But we need some best practices

Wendy Reid: Spec is extensible and flexible
… could take a spreadsheet and convert to a compliant manifest
… look at the ToC structure for ebook
… do chapters have names?
… anything from a print book or ebook applies to audiobook.
… subsections
… spec allows such best practices

Garth Conboy: Agree with Wendy
… PRH does spreadsheets
… others CS lists
… ToC can be pulled into a file today
… without the full standard
… I think - yes
… useful half-measure

Luc Audrain: ToC in HTML format is an opportunity for accessibility
… well received in France
… does this answer your question

Liisa McCloy-Kelley: Not really, but enough for today.

5. 2020 scheduling for PBG

Luc Audrain: Next US/Europe on 17th of December
… start again with 7 January.
… Not definite
… could modify

Jeff Jaffe: I’m just looking at my calendar and not seeing anything on the 17th

Jeff Jaffe: [adjourned}