W3C Workshop Report on the Electronic Books and the Open Web Platform

W3C today published the report of the workshop eBooks: Great Expectations for Web Standards, hosted by O'Reilly TOC on 11-12 February, 2013, in New York, USA, and sponsored by Pearson.

W3C seeks to support the wide adoption of Web technologies in digital publishing contexts. Consequently, there is a need for the Web and Publishing communities to reinforce cooperation around well defined technical issues. This Workshop was a first step, bringing together a wide range of stakeholders to share their own perspectives, requirements, and ideas to ensure that emerging global technology standards meet the needs of the Digital Publishing industry. The Workshop has identified a number of technical issues where the W3C could and should work together in the coming years.

The Workshop participants began discussions to prioritize lists of topics such as presentation, layout, fonts, or accessibility. As a next step, the W3C staff will work with stakeholders, such as IDPF and BISG, in the digital publishing ecosystem to identify opportunities for work related to publishing standards that can be launched at W3C.