All about EPUB3: An Update

Bob Kasher has been a pioneer in digital publishing having founded Database Directories one of Canada’s first digital publishing houses in 1995 as well as being involved in the early development of mobile delivery systems for print books with his involvement with the Global Reader project at Macmillan Publisher Services. He is also the author of nine books as well as two mobile/digital travel guides. He is currently Sales Director at NewGen as well as a member of the EPUB 3 Working Group and the BISG’s Rights and Permissions Digitalization Committee.

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Keith Fahlgren is the Director of Engineering at Safari Books Online. Previously, he worked at Threepress Consulting, O’Reilly Media, and was the co-developer of Ibis Reader.

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George Kerscher Ph.D. – “In the Information Age, access to information is a fundamental human right.”

George Kerscher began his IT innovations in 1987 and coined the term “print disabled.” George is dedicated to developing technologies that make information not only accessible, but also fully functional in the hands of persons who are blind or who have a print disability. He believes properly designed information systems can make all information accessible to all people and is working to push evolving technologies in this direction.

As Secretary General of the DAISY Consortium and President of the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), Kerscher is a recognized international leader in document access. In addition, Kerscher is the Senior Officer of Accessible Technology at Learning Ally in the USA. He chairs the DAISY/NISO Standards committee, the EPUB Maintenance working group and the W3C’s Steering Council for the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). George also serves on the USA National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS) Board.

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Bill Kasdorf is General Editor of The Columbia Guide to Digital Publishing and Vice President of Apex Content Solutions, a leading supplier of consulting, data conversion, editorial, production, and content enhancement services to publishers and other organizations worldwide. Past President of the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP), Bill has led seminars and spoken widely for publishing industry organizations such as SSP, O’Reilly TOC, NISO, BISG, IDPF, AAP, AAUP, ALPSP, STM, Seybold Seminars, and the Library of Congress. He currently serves on the IDPF Working Group updating the EPUB standard (and is coordinator of its Metadata Subgroup); the IDEAlliance working group developing the nextPub source format for magazines and other design- and feature-rich publications (chairing its nextPub-to-EPUB Mapping Committee); the NISO eBook SIG; and is Chair of the BISG Content Structure Committee.

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