Version 53ebf37188 Booʞ Ƚo Ƚʜɘ FuȽuɿɘ ¶ ɒ mɒnifɘƧȽo forbook libɘɿɒȽion https://research.consortium.io Hybrid PublishingConsortium Openedin1998, thedevastation causedbyfiftyyearsofoversightof theworkofOtletandLaFontaine. LeMondeMagazine 19December2009 Booʞ Ƚo Ƚʜɘ FuȽuɿɘ ɒ mɒnifɘƧȽo for booklibɘɿɒȽion Text(x) Anti-copyrightSimonWorthington CreativeCommonsAttribution-ShareAlike3.0Germany (CCBY-SA3.0DE) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en Legend: Thisdeedisusedintheabsenceofanintellectualproperty frameworkthatrepresentstheauthorsrespectivepositiononcopyright. Allimages©Copyrighttheauthors DesignedbyLoraine Furter PublishedbySimonWorthington, HybridPublishingConsortium http://consortium.io PrintISBN: 9781906496364| eBookISBN: 9781906496371 Trialmediareferencingsysteminuse. TheHPCisusingtheGithub implementationofSecureHashAlgorithm(SHA)versionnumber, with theadditionofafurthermediaspecificidentifier. Forthisbook publicationitisthefirsteditionprintpagenumber. Forothermediatypes theidentifiercouldbeamediaspecificidentifier, forexampleatimecode forthecaseofaudioorvideopublications. TheHPCconsidersthistrial citationidentifierasanemergentde facto standard. Thehistorical precedentbeinginthecommentariesonPlatofollowingthe1578 Stephanusreferencesconventionofcitation. See: http://plato-dialogues.org/faq/faq007.htmandinvisualform http://plato-dialogues.org/stephanus.htm SHA: 53ebf37188325b0787570d6bf74dc7dc9deec643 Anexamplereferenceforthispageis53ebf371882 https://github.com/consortium/hybrid-publishing- research/blob/master/dist/docs/book_liberation_manifesto/Book_Libe ration_Manifesto TABLEOFCONTENTS 1.INTRODUCTION 5 2. BROKEN WORKFLOWS 7 3.THEPOORBOOK 11 4.THEUNBOUNDBOOK 15 5.DESIGNINGTHEBOOKOFTHEFUTURE 23 6.INFRASTRUCTURE 27 7. THE PLAN 31 8.OURRESEARCH 33 9.CONCLUSION 39 REFERENCES 42 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 44 ɒ MɒNIFɘƧȽOFORBOOKLIBɘɿɒȽIO∩ 1.INTRODUCTION TheHybridPublishingConsortium(HPC)isaresearchnetwork whichispartoftheHybridPublishingLabandworkstosupport OpenSourcesoftwareinfrastructures. TheHPCwishestopresent practicalsolutionstotheproblemswiththecurrentstageofthe evolutionofthebook. TheHPCseesaglaringnecessityfornew typesofpublications, bookswhichareenhancedwithinterfaces inordertotakeadvantageofcomputationanddigitalnetworks. Theinitialsectionsofthismanifestowilloutlinethecurrent problemswiththedigitaldevelopmentofthebook, with referencetostagesinitshistoricalevolution. Wewillthengoon topresentaframeworkfordealingwiththeproblemsinthelater sections. NowthattherearefloodsofOpenAccesscontentforusers tosortthrough, thebookmustdeveloptotakeonfreshinterface designchallenges–forimprovingreading, butalsotosupporta widerangeofcommunities. Thelatterincludeart, design, museumsandtheDigitalHumanitiesgroups, forallofwhom video, audio, hyper-images, code, text, simulationsandgame sequencesareneeded. HPC’sviewisthatcurrenttechnologyprovisionsin publishingarecostly, inefficientandneedastep-upinR&D. Tosupporttechnical, opensourceinfrastructuresforpublishing wehaveidentifiedthe‘PlatformIndependentDocumentType’ askey. Ourobjectiveistocontributetotheworking implementationofanopenstandardsbasedandtransmedia structureddocumentformulti-formatpublishing. With structureddocumentsandaccompanyingsystemspublishers canlowercosts, increaserevenuesandsupportinnovation. HPCisaboutbuildingpublicopensourcesoftware infrastructuresforpublishingtosupportthefree-flowof knowledge–akabookliberation. Ourmissionstatementis: ‘Everypublication, in auniversalformat, available forfree in real-time.’ ThisisourreworkingofAmazon’smissionstatementforits 5 BOOʞ ȽO Ƚʜɘ FUȽUɿɘ Kindle product: ‘Everybookeverprinted, in anylanguage, allavailable in lessthan 60 seconds.’ Currentlydigitalpublishingisdeadinthewaterbecausefor digitalmulti-formatpublicationsprohibitiveamountsoftime andcostsareneededforrightsclearance: thepermissions requiredforeachnewformat, thenecessarysignedcontractsetc. Sosomethinghastogive. Forthescholarlycommunity, Open Accessacademicpublishinghasfixedtheseproblemswithopen licences, butotherpublishingsectorsoutsideofacademia remainfrozenbyrestrictivelicensingdesignedforprintmedia. Oureffortsinbuildingtechnicalinfrastructureswillbe wastedifcontentcontinuestobelockedin, andthisiswhere HPC’sissuebecomesasmuchapoliticalasatechnicalproblem. Openintellectualpropertylicences, suchasCreativeCommons, arenotenoughontheirown. Somethingelseisneededifwewant tosupportthefreeflowofknowledge: awaytofinancially supportthepublishersandthechainofskilledworkerswhoare involvedinpublicationproductions. Thiscanbeeitherbyaform ofmarketmetricsorbyfaircollectionsandredistribution methods, withthelatterinvolvingalittlelessfussingaroundthan somemarketmeasurement. OpenAccesshasmeantpublishers arestillpaid; itissimplythatthepointofpaymenthasmoved awayfromthereadertoanotherpointinthepublishingprocess, wherethefreeflowofknowledgeisnothampered. 6 ɒ MɒNIFɘƧȽOFORBOOKLIBɘɿɒȽIO∩ 2. BROKEN WORKFLOWS Publishingisthelargestcreativeindustryintermsofrevenue. Forexample, intheEUthereare64,000publisherswithtotal annualrevenuesof23€billion. 1 Thetop20%ofpublishers generate80%oftherevenueswhich, ifEUfiguresaretakenasa guide, meanstheyareslicingoffacool18€billionannually. In theEUwealthierpublisherscanafforddigitalworkflowsystems whichareprohibitivelyexpensiveforothers, startingat100,000 europerannuminend-to-endcosts. The51,000publisherswho makeupbottom80%, withaveragerevenuesoflessthanthree millioneuro, getbywithvarioushandcrankedcustomsolutions. Itisthesesmallerpublishersandalltheselfpublishers, authors andinstitutionsthatweneedtohelp. Ahighenddigitalpublishingsysteminvolvesworkflow integrationanddynamicpublishingfeatures: multi-format publishing; standardisedmarkup; rightsmanagement; asset management; readingmetrics; automateddistribution; metadatamanagement; revisioning; documentmanagement; andpaymentsystems, etc. Itisnotablethathighend publishingsystemscontinuetorelyformanyofthese processesonoffshoredcheaplabor. Takeonepartoftheworkflow, multi-formatdigital publishing, whichinvolvespublishingtoeBook, HTML, PDF, AppandXMLorothermarkup. Eachoftheseformatshastobe ‘PublicationReadyOutput’foreachdistributionchannel, which involvesmorethanmerelymakingtheappropriatefiletypeper format. Wecanseethattheproblemsherearemulti-format designlayoutsandrevisioning. Currentlyatypicalpublisher woulduseatoolchainmostlikelycomprisingMicrosoftWord andAdobeCreativeSuite, neitherofwhicharecapableofmaking layoutdesignsandhandlingrevisionsformulti-formatinany practicalorefficientmanner. Inthisconventionalscenariothe workflowforeachformatrequiresaseparateworkflowfor layoutdesign, addinganewcostoverheadforeachformat. And thenonthesideofrevisioning, forexampleaddinglastminute 7 BOOʞ ȽO Ƚʜɘ FUȽUɿɘ edits, thecurrenttoolchain, again, involveseachformatbeinga separateworkflow, sothatupdatingasimpletypomeansediting fourorfivedifferentfiles, whichaddscostsanddriveseditors crazy. Thesetwofactorsalone–outofmanymore–makethe digitalpublishingworkflowuneconomicandunviableforthe publisher. Thenetresultisthatpublishersmissoutonrevenues andfinditnearlyimpossibletoentertainthoughtsofinnovating theirprocessesorproductlines. Therearemanynewonlineserviceswithbetterandmore integratedworkflows, buttheyneedmoresupportintermsof developmenttoreachmaturitybeforepublishersswitch systems. Theriskstothepublishersofthesenewservicesisthey willclosedown, duetoinsufficientlyrobusttechnology, or becauseofotherproblems, whichmeanstheyarenotviablefor anindustrywithhardandfixeddeadlines. Itisnotsolelykeyapplicationsthatarelettingpublishers down, itisalsostandardsandtechnologies. Itremainsthecase thatcommonstandardsfordocumentmarkupslikeHTMLand EPUBcannotproperlycopewithbasicpublicationcomponents, includingfootnotes, stylinginrunningheaders, paginationand annotation. Infrastructuraltechnologiesarealsounavailableas publicservicesforreusebyindividualsorbusinesses: examples includepublicwebsearchengineindexes, costfree micropaymentandOpticalCharacterRecognition. Eachofthese areasdoesfeatureattemptsandprogrammestoaddressthe issues, butthesehaveseriousflawsorunresolvedproblems. Specifically, apublicsearchengineindexisonlyjustbeing proposedintheEUastheOpenWebIndex2 asproposedbyDirk LewandowskioftheHamburgUniversityofAppliedSciences, for micropaymentsBitCoinremainsunviablewhileitsvalueisso volatile, duetolackofregulationoverspeculators, whileOCR projectslikeGoogle’s‘TesseractOCR’3 involveGoogle maintainingprivacyoveritswordpatternrecognitionfor scanninginGoogleBooks. 8 BROKEN WORKFLOWS Neverthelesstherearemanygroupsworkingonimprovementon avarietyofareasinthetechnologytoolchainaspublic infrastructure: W3C, InternationalDigitalPublishingForum (IDPF), researchcouncilsandknowledgeinfrastructuregroups; DeutscheForschungsgemeinschaft(GermanResearch Foundation, orDFG), Jisc, foundationsand, mostimportantly, OpenSourceinitiatives(e.g., TheLibreGraphicsMeeting)and thestartupsector. 9 BOOʞ ȽO Ƚʜɘ FUȽUɿɘ A specimen sheet of typefaces and languages, by William Caslon I, letter founder, c. 1728. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Caslon- schriftmusterblatt.jpeg 10 ɒ MɒNIFɘƧȽOFORBOOKLIBɘɿɒȽIO∩ 3.THEPOORBOOK Industrypressureshaveleddigitalpublishingtocreateapoor simulacrumofthebookform–notablytheeBook, which degradesorcompletelylosesthetypographicormnemonic qualitiesofthepaperbook: pagenumber, folios, speedof browsing, typographicdetailoffontsandkerningetc. The typographic, navigationalandotherconventionsofmoveable typeprinthavebeencontributedoverthecenturiesbymany anonymousprinters, clericsandpublishers. Thebookhasnever beenafixedentitybutinsteadhasevolved, normallyacquiring