[Dtb-talk] Fwd: Report from the IDPF (eBook) working group meeting in New York

[David B Andrews]

The following message is from George Kerscher, and was circulated to
members of the DAISY Consortium.  I hope he doesn't mind me sending
it here, as I think it is very important and has substantial
benefits/considerations for the future.

Dave



David Andrews
Chief Technology Officer
Minnesota State Services for the Blind
2200 University Ave. W., #240
St. Paul, MN  55114-1840
(651) 642-0513  Office
(612) 730-7931  Cell
(651) 649-5927  Fax


>>> kerscher at montana.com 6/22/2006 8:16 PM >>>
Dear All,

This past week, Markus Gylling and George Kerscher representing the
DAISY
Consortium attended the International Digital Publishing Forum
(IDPF)
working group meeting about the upcoming revision to eBook
publishing
specifications. In addition, Jennifer Sutton representing
Bookshare.org
attended.

There are some very interesting developments that we want to share
with you.
These are decisions the working group made. This will need  to go
through
specification drafting, review, and work its way through the voting
process.
However, we want to share these early developments:

1.   DTBook, the XML vocabulary defined in the DAISY/NISO 2005
specification
has been endorsed by the working group as one of two vocabularies
that can
be used in eBooks.  The other will be an HTML profile very similar
to the
first specification. Of course, DAISY has the advantages of the
book
constructs that HTML does not have. 

2. The NCX has been endorsed as an optional navigation approach
that will be
recognized. There is the additional recommendation that this should
be used
for textbooks. The thinking here is that wherever there is a
complex book,
the NCX is the right approach. It was felt that for novels that
this was not
necessary.

3. There was great interest in the DAISY tools and supporting
materials.
Markus gave a presentation on the DAISY 2.02 validation, but more
importantly on the ZedVal utilities, which can be used as a basis
for eBook
validation. Validation utilities were not part of previous eBook
developments. The Structure Guidelines, sample content, and the
issues
tracking were also of interest.  The DMFC also received attention.

These developments provide opportunities for commercial eBooks to
be
accessible to persons with disabilities. There is much, much more
work to
do, but this is great news.

I am sure you will be having questions about DRM and which reading
systems
will read eBooks that are based on this specification. More to
come.

Best
George