13:38:47 RRSAgent has joined #pbgsc 13:38:51 logging to https://www.w3.org/2024/05/10-pbgsc-irc 13:38:51 RRSAgent, make logs Public 13:38:52 Meeting: Publishing Steering Committee 13:39:02 date: 2024-05-10 13:54:17 wolfgang has joined #pbgsc 13:55:29 chair: tzviya 14:00:06 regrets+ Rick, Cristina 14:00:19 Regrets+ Ivan 14:00:22 present+ 14:00:39 Present+ George, Wolfgang, Graham 14:01:13 present+ 14:01:30 regrets+ Daihei 14:01:32 regrets+ Daihei 14:01:38 present+ 14:03:08 AvneeshSingh has joined #pbgsc 14:03:12 present+ 14:03:23 liisamk has joined #pbgsc 14:03:30 present+ 14:04:46 present+ Paul_Belfanti 14:05:27 scribe+ 14:05:34 Bill_Kasdorf has joined #pbgsc 14:06:00 present+ 14:06:07 paul_b has joined #pbgsc 14:06:13 agenda: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-publishing-sc/2024May/0002.html 14:06:14 present+ 14:06:17 present+ 14:06:25 topic: Digital Publishing Summit May 31, 2024 14:06:38 George: EDRLab is doing a 1-day conference 14:06:46 ... I'm doing a short keynote 14:07:07 ... one thing I plan to say is that we've made huge strides in accessibility but there's still a long way to go 14:07:16 ... people still don't know what EPUB is, at least in higher ed 14:07:31 q+ 14:07:33 ... people that take the time to learn about it love it but it's still second to PDF 14:07:43 q+ 14:07:46 ... there's a long way to go in adoption, understanding, and promotion 14:07:50 leslie has joined #pbgsc 14:07:56 ack me 14:08:02 ... there are still a lot of features I see being developed in the CG and passed to reading systems 14:08:22 q+ 14:08:28 Tzviya: do you want the Steering Committee involvement? 14:08:33 George: I want promotion 14:08:54 ... Daisy is doing its part in the a11y community, particularly in higher ed 14:09:02 ... US and Canada work is going well 14:09:05 ack wendyreid 14:09:11 ... I don't know about Europe 14:09:38 Wendy: a problem I've heard, even as recently as a couple of months ago, speaking with people in Europe ... 14:09:55 ... had I heard about publishers' skepticism about EPUB3, borne by rendering issues 14:10:02 q+ 14:10:09 ... I said I'd love to know what those issues are, as I'm not aware of them 14:10:10 q- 14:10:26 ... this relates to our efforts to get the industry to move from EPUB2 to EPUB3 14:10:32 q+ to mention a11y discussions about epub v pdf 14:10:43 ... if there is skepticism due to rendering issues, we need to know what those issues are 14:11:00 ack liisamk 14:11:02 ... I think we have answers to all but we need to know where the skepticism is coming from 14:11:41 Liisa: I'm hearing from colleagues in Europe not that there's skepticism; they know they will need to move to EPUB3 for a11y 14:11:49 ... but the issue is over updating catalogs 14:12:03 ... and the rendering of HTML is inconsistent across platforms 14:12:21 ... they don't have the resources to test across all platforms so they go to the lowest common denominator 14:12:33 George: epubtest.org is coming out with new tests 14:12:46 ... but this has nothing to do with HTML rendering 14:12:52 ... we have one SVG rendering test 14:12:57 ... and some MATHML tests 14:13:07 q+ 14:13:13 ... we could test HTML rendering across platforms 14:13:20 ... I know how much work is it to do a11y testing 14:13:25 q+ 14:13:30 ... we could do the rendering testing collectively 14:13:37 q- 14:13:45 ... and get rendering agents acting properly 14:13:55 https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-apa/2024May/0006.html 14:14:16 Tzviya: there was a discussion on the APA list; "a manifest for accessibility" 14:14:24 ... it had a lot of old and incorrect information 14:14:44 ... comparison with WCAG is not this group's issue 14:15:04 ... but let's be sure to tell everyone that we are up to speed with the most current version of WCAG 14:15:07 ack me 14:15:07 tzviya, you wanted to mention a11y discussions about epub v pdf 14:15:12 Avneesh: I'm working on that 14:15:25 ack Bill_Kasdorf 14:15:29 ... scheduling some meetings 14:15:49 Bill: those insights are really important; it had not occurred to me that epubtest is a11y testing 14:15:53 q+ 14:16:02 ... if that could be expanded to include rendering, that would be very useful 14:16:11 ... but as George pointed out it's also a lot of work 14:16:27 ack we 14:16:31 ... my perception on the a11y question is that EPUB3 is how you get accessible ebooks 14:16:39 ... if that message is not getting across it's really terrible 14:16:49 Wendy: I'd caution against us trying to figure this out from our side 14:16:56 ... we don't know how people are building their books 14:17:09 ... we'd have to guess how every publisher is constructing their books 14:17:28 ... it's more useful to reach out to the various publishing associations and figure out their needs 14:17:38 Great points, Wendy, thanks! 14:17:46 ... from the perspective of having to test many publishers across the world, I've found some really wild things people are doing 14:17:56 ... it would be near impossible to replicate all of that 14:18:14 ... a lot of a11y in EPUB3 is highly dependent on the features of the platform 14:18:26 ... whether the platform is well-integrated with the operating system, etc. 14:18:41 ... it's better for us to find out what the problems are 14:18:45 Tzviya: +1 14:18:59 topic: Industry Workshop at TPAC in September (EAA and Publishing) 14:19:11 Tzviya: there was some discussion at the previous two meetings 14:19:22 q+ 14:19:31 ack AvneeshSingh 14:19:41 Avneesh: wondering about the scope 14:19:50 ... September TPAC will be in California 14:19:57 q+ 14:19:59 ... are we address concerns of the US market or of Europe? 14:20:11 ... I don't think W3C has many European publishers as members 14:20:17 ack wendyreid 14:20:23 ... I don't think we'd be successful at getting European publishers to this TPAC 14:20:30 Wendy: I talked about this with Ivan and Shinya 14:20:59 ... EAA is one topic we could talk about, but this would naturally focus on North American publishers 14:21:02 q+ to talk about larger scope of EAA on rest of web 14:21:14 ... instead, we could focus on what's next; what's the future of the digital publishing activity 14:21:37 ... with topics like scholarly publishing, what are the gaps, how do we further publication manifest 14:21:47 ... it may be easier to attract that audience to California 14:21:55 q+ 14:21:58 ack me 14:21:58 tzviya, you wanted to talk about larger scope of EAA on rest of web 14:22:03 ... I do need to submit a request for space in a couple of weeks 14:22:30 Tzviya: another topic is to take advantage of being with other W3C groups and talking about EAA 14:22:46 ... W3C also has a ton of work on web payments; maybe a session on a11y and payment 14:22:54 ... talking about the tentacles of a11y 14:23:18 ... this would need to be coordinated with WAI; it wouldn't be specifically a "publishing" workshop 14:23:39 ack liisamk 14:23:43 ... talking about publishing, payments, and maybe other areas [of a11y[ 14:23:47 s/y[/y] 14:24:00 Liisa: would we consider hybrid so Europeans could participate? 14:24:05 Tzviya: it will all be hybrid 14:24:18 ... I expect we'd have some of our community from Europe 14:24:44 Wendy: it's driven from publishing but it's a larger web concern 14:24:48 ... a multi-spec issue 14:25:03 ... it's something that I think multiple groups will have something to say 14:25:17 ... e.g. how text-to-speech works and could work 14:25:30 Leslie: for RS or for those who have specific solutions for ebooks? 14:25:53 Wendy: there's not a lot of understanding of how a TTS engine actually derives what it's going to say when reading a document 14:26:06 ... it's not formal standardization but documentation on best practices 14:26:20 ... so people building TTS engines can provide the best experiences 14:26:39 ... e.g. reading the alt text as well as the "visible" text 14:26:56 ... we'd have to talk with Kevin White to see what interest there is 14:27:07 George: I sent an invitation to the RS Testing group 14:27:25 ... Hadrian is a guest speaker this coming Tuesday to talk about his work on TTS 14:27:39 ... we're trying to get developers of read-aloud functions to come together 14:27:56 ... there are a lot of issues; how to present alt text, how to present MathML, etc. 14:28:06 ... many issues on how to provide a high-quality experience 14:28:16 +1 14:28:17 Tzviya: should we try to pull together some kind of workshop at TPAC? 14:28:17 +1 14:28:17 +1 to doing something there 14:28:20 +1 14:28:50 Tzviya: anyone opposed? 14:28:53 I do not plan to be there 14:28:57 Leslie has joined #pbgsc 14:29:01 +1 (but could not attend in person) 14:29:11 Unsure whether I'll be able to attend 14:29:21 Not attending 14:29:26 Tzviya: seems there is rough consensus to work on a workshop 14:29:38 ... I'm imagining a half-day 14:29:59 Graham: [on Zoom chat:] Not on IRC – yes to a workshop, but be wary that this is not an event that Europeans other than Gregorio, Christina take part in regularly 14:30:19 George: [on Zoom chat] will not be going 14:30:33 Tzviya: I'll work with Ivan, Kevin, and Ralph; does that make sense? 14:30:36 George: yes 14:30:54 Tzviya: in the past we've sent explicit invitations to people we think would be interested 14:31:00 Q+ 14:31:03 ... and also request fee waivers 14:31:13 ... we'll talk about topics 14:31:34 ... we need replacement leadership for the CG 14:31:52 ack wendyreid 14:31:55 ... as Wolfgang needs some time off 14:32:14 Wendy: it would be great to narrow down exactly what we want to do at the workshop 14:32:27 ... I'd like an idea of what direction we're heading more specifically 14:32:38 graham has joined #pbgsc 14:32:41 q+ 14:32:47 George: what about holding a workshop at a place publishers would be coming? 14:32:52 +1 14:33:05 ... we used to hold sessions at BEA 14:33:14 ... I think BookWorld is still happening 14:33:21 ack liisamk 14:33:49 Liisa: Cristina and I have been talking about a Pub BG meeting in June to bring together folks who are looking at some of the rendering and testing challenges 14:33:56 ... to see if we can start to collect some of that 14:34:20 q+ 14:34:22 ... also, Leslie and I have been talking about what we discussed at the previous meeting; doing a listening tour to hear what other groups are talking about 14:34:28 q+ 14:34:30 ... and maybe a co-branded event with BISG 14:34:31 ack me 14:34:37 Tzviya: I think working with BISG is a great idea 14:34:40 +1 Lisa 14:35:00 ... BookWorld and Frankfurt/London Book Fair tend to attract sales execs 14:35:18 ... co-locating with DBW may not be effective 14:35:29 ... but working with BISG would be a really good idea 14:35:44 q+ 14:35:56 ... I'm not sure working on rendering issues is worth our time unless the RS folk are fully on board 14:36:04 q+ 14:36:08 ... we should focus on what problems we can solve 14:36:19 ... everyone's rendering issues are going to be different 14:36:20 ack Leslie 14:36:26 I am not as defeatist as you are 14:36:48 Agreed Frankfurt and London are events focussed on the rights trade. There is a small and dedicated attendance from metadata people because of the mini-conferences we (EDItEUR) run – but that maybe 50 people, some of whom fly in for the day 14:36:53 Leslie: I'm feeling that 15 years ago we had active conversations in the Digital Issues Working Group of the AAP 14:37:09 ... it was an opportunity to talk about the issues of the day, and have a forum for conversation 14:37:11 They aren't 'e-book people' necessarily though. 14:37:19 ... that won't happen at TPAC; we need to go to where the publishers are 14:37:28 ... we can have a role in encouraging those conversations 14:37:42 ... we can do that with the UK Publishers Association as well 14:38:20 ... AAP does not function in the same way [as 15 years ago] so we can't have the Digital Issues discussion there 14:38:25 ... but we could reach out to BISG 14:38:34 ... get input from the publishers and community about the issues 14:38:42 ... and have conversations about whatever the issue of the day is 14:38:48 q? 14:38:51 ack AvneeshSingh 14:39:18 Avneesh: summing up; I'd say merging the IDPF Board into the Publishing Steering Committee is a very good idea 14:39:31 ... we should focus on issues that need cross-pollination with the W3C community 14:39:31 The UK PA is a much more politically-focussed organisation now. It has hived off our most active technical committee/working group, the PAAG. However, PAAG remains very active in a largely independent way 14:39:50 ... this group should drive all the things Leslie and Liisa mentioned 14:40:05 ... this group should coordinate the separate communities, not try to merge them 14:40:19 ack bi 14:40:21 ... focus on what needs cross-pollination and reach out to the publishing community where it is 14:40:30 Bill: I'm fully supportive of a BISG connection 14:40:46 ... a lot of this discussion has been book-focused 14:40:57 ... in other areas, such as scholarly publishing, books are no longer the focus 14:41:09 ... university presses all routinely do EPUB3 and focus on a11y 14:41:24 ... those are easy; they have fixed layout, etc. 14:41:38 ... in scholarly they have journals and platforms; those are not the book issues 14:41:56 ... in choosing to focus on books we won't have interest from the scholarly community 14:42:03 Tzviya: I think we realize we have a book focus 14:42:14 ... we can reach out to organizations such as Learning Ally 14:42:30 ... we've reached out to Scholarly and they haven't been interested 14:42:42 ... how we tap into higher ed is a good question 14:42:52 q 14:42:53 q? 14:42:54 ... I look forward to hearing how the conversation with Brian@BISG goes 14:43:03 George: BISG is very interested in a11y metadata 14:43:04 q+ graham 14:43:08 ... I've been attending their meetings 14:43:30 ack graham 14:44:05 Graham: Bill is correct; organizations such as BISG are great places to look for collaboration but don't just focus on BISG; there are similar organizations in other countries, such as AIE in Italy 14:44:17 ... the difficulty will be finding the right departments / right people in those organizations 14:44:34 ... one needs to look wider than only BISG 14:44:36 q+ 14:44:42 ... the net needs to be cast widely 14:44:43 BISG is definitely US focused; BookNet Canada is the rest of North America 14:45:03 ... by analogy, on the metadata side we deal with roughly 15 organizations 14:45:08 ... that takes a lot of effort 14:45:13 q+ 14:45:19 Tzviya: I guess we do need to define our goals 14:45:26 ack liisamk 14:45:54 Liisa: nobody is suggesting BISG is the only place to go; we suggested a listening tour to get feedback from many organizations 14:46:08 q+ to ask how we involve these groups instead of just interview 14:46:11 ... and pull together an idea of what people around the world need, where they are thinking we should go next 14:46:22 ... whether a standard we already have, or a standard with a missing piece 14:46:33 ... I don't think we have a good connection to what people want and need right now 14:46:48 ack Leslie 14:46:54 ... there may not be long-term coordination with all these organizations but we should start with some outreach 14:46:58 Audiobooks and manga/comics are definitely within the "book" scope. 14:47:10 Leslie: you all are looking for onramps; what standards people need 14:47:30 ... I come from a different place: there are ways now to convey an AI opt-out 14:47:41 ... the standards work has been done by the CG and by Editeur 14:47:54 ... but there's still work to sell this to the publishers to use 14:48:20 ... we used to have a forum to have the conversation about what this is, why you want to do it 14:48:23 ... that's missing 14:48:33 q+ 14:48:40 ... Cristina is going around Europe to advise 14:48:53 ... but nobody is doing that in the US 14:49:03 ... I'm looking to encourage those conversations 14:49:21 ... not just in the specific AI conversation, but it would also be a place to answer concerns about EPUB3 14:49:30 ... without those fora things are left to fester 14:49:43 George: I have a question about leadership of the steering committee 14:50:05 ... it would be great to have someone who is not a W3C veteran; somebody in publishing who has their finger on the pulse of publishing today 14:50:20 ... and more independent of W3C; we tend to see things through a W3C lens 14:50:24 ack me 14:50:24 tzviya, you wanted to ask how we involve these groups instead of just interview 14:50:58 ... the IDPF Board has some business to do; one question is who from that Board could help chair this steering committee 14:51:01 Tzviya: +1 14:51:10 ... I completely agree with Leslie 14:51:25 ... we had a network of organizations plugged into the standards work and doing evangelism 14:51:44 ... it was small scale but for those organizations involved it was very important 14:52:06 ... we had lots of different perpsectives 14:52:14 ... it's about plugging everyone in 14:52:30 ... it's a great idea to work with other publishing associations around the world but we need to have a way for them to follow up 14:52:42 ack Bill_Kasdorf 14:52:45 This app note on the subject of AI and AI outputs https://www.editeur.org/files/ONIX%203/APPNOTE%20Aspects%20of%20AI%20in%20ONIX.pdf has been one of our most downloaded app notes over the last couple of months. It references the W3C TPMrep protocol as part of process of 'opting out'. But it's Europe-only of course 14:52:46 ... we need to figure out how to allow people to participate without paying a membership fee 14:53:08 Bill: a large constituency who are very book-focused and not often in the conversation is libraries 14:53:20 ... we've involved some of them a bit in a11y metadata, particularly in MARC records 14:53:39 ... I've observed often over the years that librarians tend to have a more technical staff than most publishers 14:53:42 q+ 14:53:44 ... libraries can be very useful 14:53:48 ack graham 14:53:51 George: very good point 14:54:02 Graham: you're talking specifically about academic libraries 14:54:19 ... public libraries do not have those technical people and are getting rapidly hollowed-out 14:54:25 Bill: yes 14:54:49 Tzviya: is the goal to talk about the goals of each of those sectors or to involve them in the work? 14:54:54 q+ 14:55:06 ack liisamk 14:55:08 Bill: libraries are very concerned about the accessibility of their resources 14:55:18 ... they manage the resources but cannot make them accessible 14:55:35 Liisa: we probably need to stabilize the core before we expand 14:55:50 ... we need leadership, more involvement, bring people together, figure out what we're doing next 14:55:57 ... settle some of that and then look outward 14:56:18 Tzviya: the biggest action item seems to be to talk with Brian@BISG 14:56:34 ... is there someone who will reach out the the British Publishing Association? 14:57:05 The PAAG--Publishing Accessibility Action Group--is very important 14:57:31 ... is there someone who will reach out the the UK Publishing Association? 14:57:31 Graham: PAAG may be a better organization in the UK 14:57:31 ... I take BIC as a given, but it doesn't have a working group specifically looking at this 14:57:43 ... I will talk with them 14:57:48 PAAG is UK but has non-UK members 14:57:52 Wendy: BIC is the British BISG 14:57:59 ... and I can reach out to Booknet Canada 14:58:08 q+ 14:58:12 ... I still know some people in @@ 14:58:16 ack wolfgang 14:58:22 Liisa: and the JPA 14:58:24 s/@@/Boersenverein/ 14:58:46 Wolfgang: I know the person at Boersenverein who is focused on digital publishing 14:59:01 Leslie: Liisa and I can come up with a proposed template for the conversation 14:59:10 Tzviya: that would be fantastic 14:59:26 Graham: we often have an informal meeting with Booknet Canada, BISG, and Editeur 14:59:41 ... I'd be happy to raise this in our fortnightly informal meeting 14:59:44 Wendy: that would be great 15:00:00 Tzviya: Wendy and I will schedule a separate meeting to talk about a workshop or "salon" at TPAC 15:00:13 Graham: it would be helpful to have 3 bullet points for what we want from those meetings 15:00:20 topic: next meeting 15:00:33 Tzviya: next call is scheduled for 14 June 15:00:45 [adjourned] 15:00:47 zakim, end meeting 15:00:47 As of this point the attendees have been tzviya, George, Wolfgang, Graham, Ralph, AvneeshSingh, liisamk, Paul_Belfanti, Bill_Kasdorf, wendyreid, paul_b 15:00:50 RRSAgent, please draft minutes v2 15:00:51 I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2024/05/10-pbgsc-minutes.html Zakim 15:00:58 I am happy to have been of service, Ralph; please remember to excuse RRSAgent. Goodbye 15:00:58 Zakim has left #pbgsc 15:01:20 graham has left #pbgsc 15:01:35 i|date:|-> https://www.w3.org/2024/05/01-pbgsc-minutes.html previous 1-May 15:02:16 present+ Leslie_Hulse 15:02:36 I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2024/05/10-pbgsc-minutes.html Ralph 15:03:18 rrsagent, bye 15:03:18 I see no action items