The winners of the 2020 edition of the Accessible Books Consortium International Excellence Award for accessible publishing have been announced. Fondazione LIA – Accessible Italian Books is the winner in the “Initiative” category, dedicated to projects and initiatives that have particularly distinguished themselves for their work in the field of accessibility.

This is the most prestigious award for accessibility in the publishing sector, reaching its sixth edition in 2020 and promoted by the ABC – Accessible Books Consortium, an international stakeholder organization that represents publishers and authors and  works to increase the availability of accessible editorial content , in partnership with the Publishers Association. Here you can find the announcement.

The shortlist of finalists selected (and announced last month) includes two categories, respectively won by Macmillan Learning (United States) for the “Publishers” and, in fact, by Fondazione LIA for the category of projects and initiatives.

Hugo Setzer, president of IPA – International Publishers Association a d member of the jury, motivated the award with these words:

Fondazione LIA has introduced an innovative approach to accessible publishing, which we would encourage others to emulate. The Foundation has played a very important role in bringing together publishers and the visually impaired community to create an environment where issues of accessibility matter.

The news was welcomed with joy in Fondazione LIA, by the whole team and by Mario Barbuto, president of LIA and the Italian Union of the Blind and Visually Impaired, commented this award as a «further stimulus that pushes us to continue our commitment to create an accessible publishing ecosystem where all readers can have the same reading opportunities ». The satisfaction of Ricardo Franco Levi, president of the Italian Publishers Association, was also great, and he wanted to thank in particular all the Italian publishers who have worked alongside the Foundation in recent years: “without their precious collaboration all this would not have been possible “.

The finalists were selected by a jury made up of publishers and authors, people with visual impairments, trade organizations, and accessibility experts. The candidates for the award are chosen on the basis of their leadership role and the results obtained in the common goal of improving the accessibility of e-books and digital publications, to facilitate their use and access for people with visual disabilities, with dyslexia, or other disabilities that make it difficult to read printed books.

Photo: © Steve Burden