1. The publisher's point of view in Italy Cristina Mussinelli - Associazione Italiana Editori 2nd European eAccessibility Forum Accessible e-books: an opportunity for the disabled Paris - 28 January 2008

2. 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 

3. 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

4. The publishers’ position Publishers are aware of the importance to provide accessible content, guaranteeing equal opportunity but… they need to guarantee the respect of the rights of rights holders and to save the investment done, avoiding the possible illegal use or misuse of copyrighted content

5. 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

6. 30/10/2015Associazione Italiana Editori 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.

7. 30/10/2015Associazione Italiana Editori 7  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

8. 30/10/2015Associazione Italiana Editori 8 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)

11. 27/11/2006 How to maximize the process? Conversion and adaptation process or/and integration into the mainstream workflow ? garbage in = garbage out

12. 30/10/2015Associazione Italiana Editori 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/Dai sy/MP3 more… publishers DTP suppliers Conversion process Specialist organisations trust and shared knowledge

13. 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

14. 30/10/2015Associazione Italiana Editori 14 The Italian proposal AIE is proposing to institutions (Ministry of Education and Ministry of Cultural Heritage) the creation of a unique point of access, managed by the Italian Publishers’ Association, but with a very strong involvement of all the other stakeholders:  disable people associations,  Ministries’ representatives,  Specialist Organizations’ representatives.

15. 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

16. 30/10/2015Associazione Italiana Editori 16 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

17. improve accessibility of educational content for visually impaired people disseminate the best practices and guidelines stemming from the results of two previous EU funded projects: ORMEE and EUAIN increase the possibility for visually impaired people involved in any educational process to access course material on a timely basis, especially as digital files, that can easily be used with PC The ProAccess objective

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

21. Thank you for your attention and …let’s work together! cristina.mussinelli@aie.it