[Athen] FW: New Digital Book Standard Released (press release)

[Ron Stewart]

My comment was based on Bookshare and RFB&D being active participants in the
update to the OEBF standards.
 
Ron Stewart

  _____  

From: athen-bounces at athenpro.org [mailto:athen-bounces at athenpro.org] On
Behalf Of Kestrell
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 2:56 PM
To: Access Technologists in Higher Education Network
Subject: Re: [Athen] FW: New Digital Book Standard Released (press release)


Could you elaborate a bit upon the Open eBook Forum standards announcement
and its relationship to Bookshare? I've been using commercial eBook formats
with Jaws for a number of years, and the only thing I have noticed happening
is that fewer proprietary formats are now accessible than even two years
ago. Has OEF had an actively positive incluence on making commercial eBook
formats more accessible? I used to belong to OEF but gave up trying to
follow their activities a couple of years ago.

Kestrell



----- Original Message ----- 
From: Ron Stewart <mailto:ron.stewart at dolphinusa.com>  
To: 'Access Technologists in Higher Education  <mailto:athen at athenpro.org>
Network' 
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 1:22 PM
Subject: Re: [Athen] FW: New Digital Book Standard Released (press release)

Here's my take, I monitored the process but did not actively engage in it,
perhaps someone from Bookshare who is on the list wants to give their
perspective.
 
It means that an updated standard has been adopted for e-books or electronic
versions of trade pubs. Several folks from the access community have been
involved with the process, and the effort was to get them to adopt the same
structure in this format as is used in the DAISY format.  Not 100% success
was achieved but I think most can live with the final results.  Since the
publishers use their own proprietary formats, we shall see what these will
look like once they start hitting the streets.
 
Ron 

  _____  

From: athen-bounces at athenpro.org [mailto:athen-bounces at athenpro.org] On
Behalf Of Berkowitz, Daniel J
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 12:47 PM
To: Access Technologists in Higher Education Network
Subject: [Athen] FW: New Digital Book Standard Released (press release)



OK El Presidente Ron - 

 

What does this mean (if anything) for us?

 


========================= 
Daniel Berkowitz - Assistant Director 
Boston University Office of Disability Services 
19 Deerfield Street, 2nd floor 
Boston, MA 02215 
  
(617) 353-3658 (office) 
(617) 353-9646 (fax) 
 <mailto:djbrky at bu.edu> djbrky at bu.edu (eMail) 
 <http://www.bu.edu/disability> www.bu.edu/disability 
  


  _____  


From: Nick Bogaty [mailto:nbogaty at idpf.org] 
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 10:40 AM
To: library at openebook.org; conferences at openebook.org
Subject: New Digital Book Standard Released (press release)

 

Dear IDPF Newsletter Subscribers,

I am very pleased to announce that the IDPF membership has elected to
elevate the status of the Open eBook Publication Structure Container Format
1.0 (OCF 1.0) to a Recommended Specification, an official IDPF industry
standard.  A press release announcing approval of the specification as well
as publisher adoption and software implementations of the standard was
released this morning at
http://www.idpf.org/pressroom/pressreleases/ocf1.0.htm.

Please contact me with any questions.

--
Nick Bogaty
Executive Director
International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF)
nbogaty at idpf.org
(212) 924-9081 direct

New Digital Book Standard Released

Software Companies and Publishers Announce Implementation Plans

New York, NY (October 30th, 2006) - The International Digital Publishing
Forum (IDPF), the standards and trade association for digital publishing,
announced today the release of a new technical standard to facilitate
digital content creation, distribution and use by consumers.  In addition to
the Open eBook Publication Structure (OEBPS), an XML standard for authoring
digital books, the IDPF has now released a new standard for packaging a
digital publication, including the contents of the publication, metadata,
signatures, encryption, rights and other information into one standard file.
Entitled the Open eBook Publication Structure Container Format (OCF), the
new IDPF standard will allow publishers to release a single standard file
into their sales and distribution channels and will also enable consumers to
exchange unencrypted eBooks and other digital publications between reading
systems that support the new standard.

"The new container format provides a simplified method of packaging a
digital publication into a single file, thereby making it easier for
publishers, resellers and others to deliver and utilize digital reading
materials," stated Nick Bogaty, IDPF Executive Director.   "The OCF
specification has widespread support from all sectors of our industry
including publishers and software companies."

The standard specifies a ZIP-based packaging format that is an extension of
OASIS' Open Document Format Standard (ISO/IEC 26300).  The OCF specification
and additional information can be found at
<http://www.idpf.org/ocf/ocf1.0/index.htm> http://www.idpf.org/ocf/ocf1.0.
OCF files can easily be identified by the file extension ".epub".

"Today's announcement heralds the beginning of increased title availability
and lower costs for publishers entering the eBook and digital reading
market," stated Neil de Young, Hachette Book Group USA. "Over the coming
months we will be working with our vendors and partners to transition our
entire eBook publishing program to the OCF standard," he added.

Over forty publishers, technology companies and organizations were involved
in the OCF Working Group, the committee responsible for the creation of the
standard, including Adobe Systems Inc., Benetech, DAISY Consortium, eBook
Technologies Inc., Hachette Book Group, Harlequin, iRex Technologies,
Mobipocket (An amazon.com company), netLibrary, OverDrive Inc., Random
House, Simon & Schuster, WGBH and many others.
 
Publisher Adoption

Both trade and academic publishers plan to use the OCF standard to deliver
files through their distribution channels using the standard file.  The OCF
will be used in workflows where an electronic publication is sent from a
publisher to a distributor or retailer and when an electronic publication is
delivered to a consumer using software or hardware which has implemented the
standard.

"Defining a single delivery format is a huge achievement for the industry.
It simplifies production processes and promotes distribution of many more
titles than are currently available," said Ken Brooks, VP, Global Production
and Manufacturing Services, Thomson Learning.

Many IDPF member companies have announced service offerings to produce
digital publications using the OCF standard including codeMantra, Green
Point Technology Services, Publishing Dimensions, Rosetta Solutions, Inc.
and techbooks.

Software Implementation

Numerous software and hardware companies have also announced implementation
plans for the new standard.  Software implementations will allow publishers
to save considerable time and expense in delivering digital content,
enhancing the flow of content to consumers.  Also, implementations of OCF
will increase interoperability between software.  Announced implementations
are:

Adobe Implementation -  <http://www.adobe.com/> http://www.adobe.com

Product name: AdobeR Digital Editions
Implementation Time Frame: Public beta available now
Product Details/Features: Natively supports PDF and OCF-packaged OEBPS
content, based on in-preparation next-generation OEBPS specification.
Product URL:  <http://www.adobe.com/go/getdigitaleditions>
http://www.adobe.com/go/getdigitaleditions

eBook Technologies, Inc. Implementation -
<http://www.ebooktechnologies.com/> http://www.ebooktechnologies.com

Product Name: eBook Publisher
Implementation Time Frame: Public Beta Mac Tools supporting OCF available
now; Windows and Server OCF support coming in Q4 2006
Product Details/Features: eBook production tools supporting processing of
OEBPS, Word, PowerPoint, text and HTML into eBooks for desktop preview and
delivery into the ETI Reading System
Product URL:
<http://www.ebooktechnologies.com/support_publisher_download.htm>
http://www.ebooktechnologies.com/support_publisher_download.htm

Mobipocket (An amazon.com company) Implementation -
<http://www.mobipocket.com/> http://www.mobipocket.com

Product name: Mobipocket Reader / Mobipocket Creator
Implementation Time Frame: Q1 2007
Product Details/Features: Mobipocket Reader brings rich eBook content to all
mobile platforms (Windows Mobile, Symbian smartphones, Blackberry, Palm) as
well as desktops and laptops (MS Windows).
Product URL:  <http://www.mobipocket.com/en/DownloadSoft/default.asp>
http://www.mobipocket.com/en/DownloadSoft/default.asp

OSoft Implementation -  <http://www.dotreader.com/> http://www.dotreader.com

Product name: dotReader with OCF plug-in
Implementation Time Frame: Jan 2007
Product Details/Features: The dotReader is a cross-platform, open source
documentation platform that renders multiple XML and other formats and will
support the OCF format for the dotReader. The OCF format will take advantage
of all of dotReader's capabilities including advanced search and public,
private, and group annotations. 
Product URL:  <http://www.dotreader.com/> http://www.dotreader.com 

OCF and the Open eBook Publication Structure

OCF requires inclusion of an OEBPS version of the publication, an XML
standard for digital books maintained by the IDPF (
<http://www.idpf.org/oebps/oebps1.2> http://www.idpf.org/oebps/oebps1.2).
For reading systems that can display OEBPS files, publishers will be able to
simply allow for the sale of the OCF.  Platform-targeting or the application
of digital rights management (DRM) will be the responsibility of the target
software.  For content that is not secured by DRM, digital publications in
OCF will be able to be exchanged between conformant software, improving
content interoperability for the consumer.

In addition to the OEBPS version of the publication, OCF will also allow for
the transport of alternate renditions of the publication, including PDF and
other targeted eBook formats.

The OEBPS standard is currently being updated in the IDPF.  A draft of the
next version of OEBPS will be released by the end of the year.  The draft
updates the standard to include better control of content rendering,
navigation, accessibility and alignment with other standards efforts.  OEBPS
content is expected to offer publishers National Instructional Materials
Accessibility Standard (NIMAS) compliance.  It is the production and
consumer standard for reflowable digital content.

AAP/IDPF Meeting

On November 29th, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the IDPF
will hold a joint meeting to help educate publishers on the use of OCF and
the next version of OEBPS in their production and distribution workflows.

The meeting will be held at the AAP New York office.  Registration for the
event is limited to 50, please visit the AAP website at
<http://www.publishers.org/conference/index.cfm>
http://www.publishers.org/conference/index.cfm for registration details.

Additional Relevant Information

Open eBook Publication Structure Container Format (OCF) Version 1.0:
 <http://www.idpf.org/ocf/ocf1.0> http://www.idpf.org/ocf/ocf1.0

Open eBook Publication Structure (OEBPS) Specification Version 1.2:
 <http://www.idpf.org/oebps/oebps1.2> http://www.idpf.org/oebps/oebps1.2 

OCF Working Group:
 <http://www.idpf.org/idpf_groups/oebpscontainerwg.htm>
http://www.idpf.org/idpf_groups/oebpscontainerwg.htm

OEBPS Working Group:
 <http://www.idpf.org/idpf_groups/oebpswg.htm>
http://www.idpf.org/idpf_groups/oebpswg.htm

IDPF Specifications & Documents: 
 <http://www.idpf.org/specs.htm> http://www.idpf.org/specs.htm

IDPF Working Groups:
 <http://www.idpf.org/idpf_groups.htm> http://www.idpf.org/idpf_groups.htm

IDPF meetings & teleconference schedule:
 <http://www.idpf.org/events.htm> http://www.idpf.org/events.htm

IDPF membership information:
 <http://www.idpf.org/membership.htm> http://www.idpf.org/membership.htm

About the International Digital Publishing Forum

The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), formerly the Open eBook
Forum (OeBF), is the trade and standards association for the digital
publishing industry.  Further information about the organization and
industry, including membership information, can be obtained by visiting
<http://www.idpf.org/> www.idpf.org.



  _____  




_______________________________________________
Athen mailing list
Athen at athenpro.org
http://athenpro.org/mailman/listinfo/athen_athenpro.org


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/pipermail/athen-list/attachments/20061030/fad0019a/attachment.html>