The 2021 edition of Bologna Children’s Book Fair and its new event BolognaBookPlus will be held online from 14 to 17 June. The Italian fair is the leading professional fair for children’s books in the world. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the 58th edition of the fair will be an online experience with a rich programme, dedicated to the world of books and licensing.

In this context, Fondazione LIA coordinates an in-depth webinar on accessibility in publishing and the European Accessibility Act. The webinar will be held on 14 June and it is organized in collaboration with Aldus Up, the European bookfairs’ network co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

“Get ready for the European Accessibility Act”

2021 June, 14

Speakers to be defined

The 2025 European Accessibility Act requires content producers and all those involved in the book supply chain to take on board different measures in their forward planning to ensure that the collective objective of creating an accessible digital publishing ecosystem is met.

As the date of implementation is on the horizon, the time for the publishing supply chain to prepare is NOW! Any publisher or online retailer, wishing to sell their digital books into Europe or have an e-commerce web site selling in Europe, needs to start making changes to their production, website, platform and app to comply with the new legislation. Find out what this means for you and how you can take practical steps to making your content more accessible to a wider readership and be compliant for the new Act.

The seminar will provide an overview of the advantages that will be obtained in making content accessible for people with visual disabilities, thus creating an inclusive editorial proposal for every reader.

Agenda

• Welcome and introduction (Anne Bergman, FEP)
• The European Accessibility Act and its impact on the publishing industry (Cristina Mussinelli, Fondazione LIA)
• An overview on how different actors of the publishing value chain are preparing to comply with the Act requirements.
  Round table chaired by Jo Henry (Bookbrunch) with Wendy Reid (Kobo), Maurizio Mattioli (Zanichelli) and Cecile Terouanne (Hachette Livres).
• Who and how many are the beneficiaries of the EAA? (Thomas Kalisch, EBU)
• Conclusion

Speakers

Anne Bergman-Tahon

She is the FEP Director. In 2003, she passed the postgraduate diploma in UK, European and US law of copyright and related rights. She is member of the International Publishers Copyright Council and of the Belgian section of ALAI. She has been coordinator for FEP on a number of European projects, including the ARROW and ARROW plus projects and the European Union Prize for Literature.

Thomas Kahlisch

He is the Director of the German Center for Accessible Reading (dzb lesen), the most important centre for the promotion of reading for people with disabilities in Germany.

Maurizio Mattioli

He is the Digital Production manager and product owner at Zanichelli Editora S.p.A. He is responsible for the digital content and ebook production workflow optimisation and the development of the ebook reading platform Booktab. Previously he was head of the multimedia department at Mondadori Education.

Cristina Mussinelli

Secretary General of the Fondazione LIA. She works in publishing sector since 1982 and since 1992 she has been involved in the digital and multimedia market. Since 1988 she has been responsible for the technological innovation and digital publishing areas within the Italian Publishers Association (AIE). She is member of the Steering Committee and co-chair of the W3C Digital Publishing Business Group, the international community developing and maintaining the Web standards and the EPUB®, the most widely used format for trade digital publications. She is also Board member of EDRLab (European Digital Reading Lab), invited expert in the ‘OT UNI/CT 014/SC 04 “Automazione e documentazione” and member of the Steering Committee of the European Inclusive Publishing Forum.

Wendy Reid

She is the Accessibility and Publishing Standards Lead at Rakuten Kobo, where she leads their company-wide accessibility efforts and adoption of new technical standards. She is also the Chair of the EPUB Working Group, Chair of the Publishing Working Group, and Editor of the Audiobooks specification at W3C.

Cecile Terouanne

After a literature degree at the Sorbonne University in Paris, specialising in the study of Slavonic languages, I worked for a while as a translator of Russian, before pursuing a career in children’s publishing. Over the past twenty-five years I have worked for Actes Sud Junior, Flammarion Jeunesse and since October 2004 for Hachette. Since  2011 I have been running Hachette Romans, a fiction Department, managing a team of 20 people and developing a programme of some 70 new titles each year, and a backlist of over 700 titles. Our catalogue is targeting readers from 7/8 year old up to 15yo and more. Since 2010, all our titles tend to be simultaneously available in paper and electronic formats.

The one-day event

The webinar is part of a one-day live event on 14 June: “Forging Forward: The Pandemic. An Interruption, or an Opportunity to Rethink”, curated by BolognaBookPlus in partnership with AIE (Italian Publishers Association) and in collaboration with IPA (International Publishers Association).

The agenda of the day and more information are here: https://bit.ly/2STtGnv