Meeting minutes
Any updates on User Stories activity
Wolfgang: we intend to use the concept next week with our new CG meeting
… to pick it up for the idea of education
… and encourage the discussion on vocabulary additions to start with use cases
… there's interest in a group on educational tags
… also for a discussion on selectors in the context of annotations
Tzviya: I saw you are looking for use cases on manifest as well
Wolfgang: yes
Tzviya: I had hoped to talk with some people about manifests in education content
… I won't have time to put this together in the next two weeks but can recommend some people to involve
Matues: we want to focus on problems before solutions
… I can talk about what Norton is doing and we'll invite others to share on what they're doing with PubManifest
… the goal is to write up other use cases that could be addressed with PubManifest
… and what needs the spec might not yet meet
Any updates to share on Pub-related standards activities elsewhere?
George: a lot of conferences coming up
… DIgital Book World might be interesting
… Accessing Higher Ground
… PageBreak
… CSUN
… all these are after the EDRLab event
<tzviya> https://
Tzviya: see ^^ an update that WAI published
… it includes EPUB
… it shows what WAI is working on
Liisa: London Book Fair this week
… looking forward to hearing about in-person events
Ivan: Laurent just wrote us an email suggesting a session on EPUB 3 at the EDRLab Digital Publishing Summit
… if it's in-person then Wolfgang and I might be the most likely attendees
… Wendy and Dave are preparing something before then
Wendy: Dave, Monique, and I are preparing a EPUB3 talk to present at TechForum
<wendyreid> https://
Wendy: I'm sure they'll let us publish the talk on w3.org
Liisa: may we socialize this in the BG?
Wendy: sure!
… it will be recorded too
Zheng: Booknet Canada is worth mentioning too
… there's another about a11y
… and the digital book industry in Canada
… .is there any community talking about DRM ?
… I'm trying some things; e.g streaming manga via Youtube
<tzviya> Laura and Mo on Ebook A11y https://
Zheng: and for other digital books I was tracking the NFT CG
… NFT could provide tokens for digital books; I proposed an extension
… is there a place to talk about this?
Ralph: such a conversation is not out of scope for a CG but I caution about setting expectations regarding Member support for Rec-track activity
Liisa: folks are interested in talking about the future of streaming and NFTs
George: the EDRlab activities in this area -- LCP -- have gone to ISO
… I think it's an ISO standard now
… in the early years most DRM blocked a11y, which lead to the DMCA exception for a11y
… anything about DRM that blocks a11y is going to be a big issue
<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to suggest the CCG
<tzviya> https://
Tzviya: it's worthwhile looking at the Credentials CG work ^^
… they have escalated the Decentralized Identity work and the Verifiable Credentials work
… and may be talking about NFTS
… though I'm puzzled about how NFTs work for DRM
… re: ISO work, there's also a group working on content on the blockchain
… I'll dig it up
Ivan: Content ... ?
<tzviya> ISCC https://
<ivan> +1 to Tzviya
Ralph: CCG might not be the most effective place for an NFT/DRM discussion
Zheng: I'm looking for a place to build bridges and communicate
… to talk about ideas
Wendy: our efforts are better spent on focusing on what _readers_ want
<tzviya> +1 to wendyreid
Wendy: focus on things that will benefit readers
… reader behaviour and interests
Liisa: I agree with Wendy and am worried about what I see in the market right now
… I've done some evaluation of top-selling titles across different genres, publishers, and geographies
… I'm disappointed to see there's not a lot taking advantage of what we've built
… even the a11y stuff that people should be adopting
… vendors are saying people want as cheap as possible
… how can we engage people into getting to the "what readers want" conversation?
Zheng: I agree with that
… it's also a good idea to bring things up to see where there might be interest
… we've put a lot into making things stable and reliable
… but there is business for new stuff too
Wendy: I'm not hearing "as cheap as possible"
… people have different pricing expectations for ebooks; we won't change that in the standards space
… users have high expectations for the content they receive
… I have reams of comments from users about the content and their reading experience
… it would be nice to be able to share these kinds of comments anonymously
Tzviya: I agree with what Wendy said and also in the education world the content must be accessible
<wolfgang> @wendyreid: brilliant idea! empirically founded insights on what users really want!
Tzviya: we should be looking ahead a few years too
… the investment is worthwhile
Liisa: I seem to have been misunderstood
… by "cheap" I meant that publishers are being cheap in what they're doing
… we're not getting as close to what users want
… we should find some way to surface this
… e.g. if people work on their backlist, work on improving the quality at the same time
… e.g. I'm surprised that fewer indices are included now and when they are they're not accessible
Zheng: the complaint from users are that the book does not satisfy their expectation
… I've added a11y indicators in my platform
EPUB 3 status
Wendy: the WG voted to go to Candidate Recommendation today
… we hope to publish CR on May 5
… Dave and I will be doing a talk for TechForum and write an article for publication
… that's our communication plan at this point
<Bill_Kasdorf_> Note that it's all three specs
Wendy: maybe George can help us reach out to conferences
… we'll be in testing mode until October
… and hope to move to Proposed Recomendation then
… we want to tell people "there's nothing in EPUB 3,3 to scare you"
<GeorgeK> Now with EPUB 3.3 going to CR, start a campaign to upgrade EPUB 2 to 3.3; focus on quality!
Wendy: we've done a lot of editorial work to make the spec more understandable
<Zakim> AvneeshSingh, you wanted to comment on EPUB 3.3 promotion
Avneesh: it will be important to communicate migration from EPUB 3.2 to EPUB 3.3 and the impact EPUB 3.3 will have on a11y
… the aligment with WCAG 2.2 and EU A11y Act
… we'll have to do a good job of explaining why people should move
Ivan: we've started to discuss this in the WG
… my feeling is that for the publishers the changes in the document are editorial
… technically the changes are minimal; more core media types, some features for metadata on i18n
… for publishers, things do not change really
… though I agree with Avneesh; the a11y document is the big thing
… the more important changes are on the reading system side
… the spec separates the RS spec from the authoring spec
… there are features that are esoteric for authors and not relevant that are very relevant to RS's
… 3.3 is very important for the RS developer community
… the privacy and security material is very relevant to authors
… in the messaging we should separate the different communities to whom EPUB 3.3 is important
… mainly thanks to Matt, we have made a lot of improvements editorially and in examples
… the spec is simply better written
<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to mention epubcheck
Ralph: should we celebrate in May or wait until October/Novembber?
Tzviya: feature complete eubcheck beta will be released soon
… it will be feature-complete corresponding to the EPUB 3.3 CR
Ivan: thanks for reminding us of that
… on the "when to celebrate" question, there are a lot of explanations to do
<AvneeshSingh> +1 to start in May
Ivan: I advocate for starting publicity in May
… we don't expect major technical changes to happen as a result of CR
<tzviya> +1 to start in May
Ivan: for the community of publishers to dissipate possible fears it's better to do this early
<liisamk> +1 to May
Ivan: I recommend doing publicity in May
Bill: in terms of who should be paying attentioni to which specs,
… the vendors should be paying the most attention
George; one audience we need to make sure to address is authors
… there is still a dominant mindset of print and PDF
… with so much being on-line now and remote learning, we need to emphasize to authors that they need to demand that their publications get out as EPUB and those are what are placed in stores, not PDF
<Bill_Kasdorf_> a/vendors/production vendors, prepress vendors
[adjourned]