As the entering into force of the European Accessibility Act approaches (June 28th, 2025), accessibility is becoming more and more important gaining a wider space in the publishing industry debate. The survey on Analysis of skills gap, launched by the APACE project (October 2024), highlighted that one of the biggest challenges publishers face is image description.

In the framework of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair (March 31-April 3), one of the most important fairs in the field of children’s publishing and whose focus is precisely on images and illustrations, APACE is organizing two events addressing the topic of image description.

Seminar “Bringing stories to life: Inclusive strategies for accessible illustrations in children’s books and more”

March 31, 10:30-11.15 am, BBPlus Theatre

Text and images each contribute in their own way to the experience of a story in children’s books and more. Making images accessible to readers with visual impairments is essential for a complete and inclusive reading experience. Image description is a means of accessibility, as is the choice of inherently accessible illustrations: “How do I tackle both challenges as a publisher, author, or illustrator?”

In this seminar participants will experience what it means when you miss out on illustrations, and learn the art of doing justice to the richness of images through image description.

Panelists:

• Elisa Molinari, Project manager at Fondazione LIA
• Anne Bottenheft, Image Specialist at Dedicon
• Anke Kersten, Image Specialist at Dedicon

Accessibility Meet-Up on image description

March 31, 2-4pm, Sala Notturno

Following the seminar, participants are invited to join a networking event with international colleagues and accessibility experts, an opportunity to bring forward questions, challenges and solutions when it comes to image description in publishing.

After a moment of greetings and a short introduction, participants will choose among two thematic tables led by accessibility experts: “AI and images” and “ Image description and publishing accessible ebooks”.

The event is organized in the framework APACE, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.