Michiel Kolman, Chair of the IPA's Inclusive Publishing and Literacy Committee spoke to Dan Conway, CEO of the Publishers Association (UK) about their Inclusivity Action Plan and their past work on diversity and inclusion. 

In September, one of the most significant book events in Brazil took place, the Rio de Janeiro Book Fair (Bienal do Livro do Rio de Janeiro), with record-breaking numbers of attendees and sales, and for the first time, featuring an international Summit for the publishing industry.

Books are playing a major role in spreading ideas, enriching the culture and turning our democracies into flourishing debated places. No matter whether they are used to escape from our reality or to dive into it, access to books remains a fundamental human right. This right is reinforced by the application of the European Accessibility Act that urges the ebooks ecosystem to comply with accessibility obligations for products and services. This directive creates an inclusive society by ensuring access to ebooks for all European citizens, regardless of their disabilities.

The European Digital Reading Lab (EDRLab) is a digital innovation laboratory by and for the publishing industry. We are an international, non-profit development laboratory, working on the deployment of an open, interoperable and accessible digital publishing ecosystem, worldwide. We develop technology to accelerate the adoption of digital reading in different forms: text, audio and image.

I write this post while returning home from a board meeting of the Accessible Books Consortium (ABC) and the celebration of the Marrakesh Treaty’s 10^th anniversary at the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO, in Geneva.

No one gets to net zero by themselves. We all recognize the need to work together across the entire book value chain to make our processes more efficient, to reduce waste and recycle and reuse. Yet, one curious area of the book business are book returns. Returning unsold books for credit or refund is considered an essential part of the bookselling business. In the process, we ship books between retailers and warehouses, try and resell return copies and ultimately end up pulping unwanted titles. The latest report from RISE Bookselling, a project led by the European and International Booksellers Federation (EIBF), investigates seven case studies of how book returns work in European and international countries. We reached out to Daniel Martin Brennan and Tora Åsling, Policy Advisor and Policy Officer at the European and International Booksellers Federation (EIBF) for more details. 

On June 21st, the Mexican Association for Intellectual Property Protection (Asociación Mexicana para la Protección de la Propiedad Intelectual) celebrated the discussion forum “Marrakesh Treaty in Mexico. Its Application and Publishing Tools for Accessible Books” (Tratado de Marrakech en México. La aplicación del tratado y herramientas editoriales para ediciones accesibles). The event was hosted by the National Chamber for the Mexican Publishing Industry (Cámara Nacional de la Indistria Editorial Mexicana, CANIEM). It gathered a wide variety of professionals and institutions that talked from different points of view about the current state of the treaty´s provisions in Mexico. 

On a bright, sunny day in the centre of Amsterdam, Dutch publishers gathered together to be inspired to take action on climate change. In a historical 19th Century wooden warehouse, in a completely sustainable venue, publishers discussed their own actions and challanges to reach Net Zero. Whilst some were further ahead in their journey, installing solar panels in offices and using sustainabile materials in their book designs. For others, it was the perfect venue to be inspired and launch the new knowledge platform, www.duurzaampubliceren.nl, to help give practical resources and tools.  We heard from the co-organizers, and sustainability leads, Sanne Walraven and Nienke Bakker about the event and sustainability for Dutch publishers.

On 23 April, the world celebrates books, in the words of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), as "one of the most beautiful inventions for sharing ideas and embodying an effective instrument to fight poverty and build sustainable peace.”

When we talk to decision makers about the IPA’s dual policy pillars of copyright and freedom to publish, or about the publishing sector more generally, it can quickly become obvious that we need to specify what we mean by ‘publishing’ — how there are many kinds of publishers.

What a feeling - the exhilaration (and a little relief after chairing the programming committee) – following the end of the 33^rd International Publishers Congress. After nearly 2 years of preparations we had over 600 delegates and speakers registered from 63 countries to Jakarta to discuss, dissect, analyse and celebrate our international publishing sector. 

UNESCO’s World Book Capital City programme is one of the most acclaimed international literary projects. Various cities from different parts of the world strive to win this honorable status annually. The project originated Madrid. Six years after the launch of World Book and Copyright Day (April 23), IPA President, Pere Vicens had the idea, inspired by the successful experience of the city of Madrid, to nominate the best city programme aimed at promoting books during the period between one "Book Day" and the next.

There is no doubt of the importance of the wider publishing sector for society. We contribute not only to the development and preservation of our cultural identity, fostering empathy, understanding and knowledge but as a sector we contribute to the economic development and jobs of millions across the globe. Gathering an accurate picture of what the publishing sector looks like from an international perspective is one of the biggest challenges that the IPA has been working on for the past five years.

On 11 January a group of University Presses in the UK and Ireland launched EvenUP, a forum for EDI information collection, benchmarking, and training, with the goal of developing and sharing best practices for the recruitment and retention of university press publishers and authors from under-represented groups. Michiel Kolman, Chair of the IPA's Inclusive Publishing and Literacy Committee spoke to a spokesperson for the group about the initiative.

The SDG Publishers Compact, launched by the International Publishers Association and the United Nations back in 2020, has continued to gather momentum for the wider publishing sector. In practice, the compact requires aligning our daily practices, our content, and measures of success to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). One sector accelerating progress has been academic publishing.

Hugo Setzer, IPA Past President and head of the IPA's Accessibility Working Group spoke to Paul Gillijns and Sanne Walraven of the Dutch Educational Publishers and Dutch General Publishers Associations respectively about their 18 month programme to train publishers in accessibility ahead of the implementation of the European Accessibility Act in 2025.  

The term of IPA Past President, Dr Michiel Kolman, on the board of the Accessible Books Consortium (ABC) came to an end last month. The ABC is hosted by WIPO and is part of the practical implementation of the Marakesh Treaty. Michiel has been succeeded by Laura Brady of Canadian publisher, House of Anansi. I asked Michiel about his work on the ABC board and to Laura about her background in accessibility and her hopes for the future.

Our charity, Book Aid International, works for a world where everyone has access to books that will enrich, improve, and change their lives. Every year, we provide around one million brand new books to thousands of libraries, schools, universities, hospitals, refugee camps and prisons around the world where people would otherwise have few books, or no books at all.

The support of publishers is vital to our work. Publishers donate all the books we send, and we hear again and again from our partners and readers around the world that the quality of the books we provide is what makes our charity unique.

We know that simply making books available is not always enough – particularly when it comes to supporting education. That is why in addition to providing books, we also work with our partners to create reading spaces for children in libraries, train teachers and librarians, create school libraries and fund the purchase of local books.

Our largest education programme, Inspiring Readers, has put over 372,473 brand new, publisher donated books into the classrooms of over 290,000 African primary school pupils in Cameroon, Kenya, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Zanzibar and Zimbabwe and funded the purchase of 50,237 locally published supplementary books for schools. We have found that when vibrant and up to date books are available children are attracted to reading, then learn to read more easily and that reading confidence helps them in other subjects as well.

In addition to supporting pupils’ reading directly, a well-stocked school library creates a world of new resources for teachers and allows them to teach in an exciting way. For example, we’ve heard about teachers using picture books to teach counting and non-fiction books about topics like volcanos or dinosaurs to enrich science lessons.

Happy International Literacy Day!

On 16 June during Bologna Children's Book Fair, Aldus Up, the European book fairs network co-founded in the framework of the Creative Europe programme and coordinated by the Italian Publishers Association (AIE) published two studies on existing surveys on translations and reading habits in Europe (the full report is published here).