On June 3rd, the Digital Publishing Summit (DPUB Summit) will be back with a new in-person edition. The initiative, focused on digital publishing and aimed at professionals in the book and publishing field, is organized by EDRLab (European Digital Reading Laboratory), a non-profit organization active in the development of software, reading solutions and DRM for the creation of an open, interoperable, and accessible digital publishing ecosystem.

The event is an opportunity for training and discussion on the themes of technological innovation and its impact on the production, distribution and reading of digital content.

How to participate

The Summit will be held in Madrid, hosted by Casa del Lector, from 9:30 a.m. to 17:00 p.m. To participate, registration on the dedicated platform is required: admission is free for EDRLab and IPDA members and students and teachers can benefit from a discount on the entrance fee.

AGENDA

An introduction focused on the main changes of the last two years will be followed by several seminars and panels. Among these are:

• a session on the evolution of the LCP DRM used in the distribution of EPUBs, PDFs and audio books. With two case studies: MLOL (Italy) and Libranda (Spain);
• two meetings on the latest updates of the Readium toolkit and Thorium Reader;
• an overview of the current status of EPUB 3.3 work at W3C.

There will be also  the presentations of:

• the Text and Data Mining Reservation Protocol, specified by a W3C Community Group: a machine-readable solution, which allows rights holders to express information about the rights of their contents;
• the case study by Hachette Livre of the automated implementation of accessibility metadata for EPUB 3 new releases;
• the EDRLab project “Lis mon Livre” dedicated to the development of an innovative reading service interfacing smart speakers to online media libraries.

A FOCUS ON ACCESSIBILITY

There will also be a focus on accessibility: the session “The Accessibility clock is ticking”, is organized in a collaboration with Fondazione LIA and in the framework of Aldus Up, a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the EU. The session will focus on the theme of accessibility which is becoming increasingly relevant for the publishing industry: starting from June 2025, the European Accessibility Act will come into effect, and all players involved in the production and distribution of e-books on the European market will be required to provide accessible products and services to their readers.

The session will present some experiences of organizations, institutions and companies active in the publishing field in different countries and showing the ways they are facing the upcoming legislative changes:

• Cristina Mussinelli (Fondazione LIA) will chair the session and describe the current situation in Italy;
• Melissa Haquenne (De Marque), will describe the current situation in Quebec and Spain, and she will illustrate the challenges that publishers face in producing content and documenting accessibility metadata;
• Gregorio Pellegrino (Fondazione LIA) will talk about the status of the work of the W3C Publishing community on accessibility topics;
• Dienaba Dia (Ministère de la Culture, France) will describe the current situation in France and the work in progress.
• Gautier Chomel (EDRLab) will introduce the ongoing work in France on recommendations for signaling native accessible ebooks on bookstores in a standard way.

READIUM DEVELOPER MEETING AND READMAGINE

The 2022 edition of the DPUB Summit will also host an unique event with two other initiatives that are taking place in the same week and location, the FGSR center Casa del Lector dedicated to research, promotion, and dissemination of reading.

During the afternoon of May 31st, EDRLab will organize a Readium Developers Meeting, a four-hour technical appointment, which only a maximum of 15 developers will be able to join, upon direct request to the organizers.

From May 31st to June 2nd, instead, Readmagine will follow the meeting. The initiative, created in 2005 by FGSR, will include debates, workshops and conferences on digital innovation and transformation processes affecting books and reading. The key themes of this year’s edition will be the positive impact of books and reading on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) defined by the UN and the tools that the publishing industry can use to maximize it. The complete program is available on the Readmagine website.