[LINK] Australian e-Book Industry Report

[Tom Worthington]

The Australian Government has invited submissions to the Book Industry
Strategy Group (BISG) on Digital book production, by 10 December 2010:
<http://minister.innovation.gov.au/Carr/Pages/SUPPORTFORAUSTRALIASBOOKINDUSTRYINTHEDIGITALAGE.aspx>.

Under the BISG Terms of Reference, group has until April 2011 to "...
develop a comprehensive strategy for securing Australia’s place in the
emerging digital book market, while making the Australian book industry
more efficient and globally competitive...".

In my view, the best way to help the Australian publishing industry
transition to the digital age would be with education for those in the
industry. Authors and editors in particular need to know how the
technology and business models work. Also key to this is the role of
libraries and universities. In addition the publishing industry needs to
explore links with other creative industries, particularly video game
production, which has overtaken film production in terms of revenue.

So far the group has commissioned a report "Digital Technologies in
Australia’s Book Industry" (Jenny Lee, July 2010):
<http://www.innovation.gov.au/Section/Industry/Documents/DigitalTechnologiesinAustraliasBookIndustry.pdf>.

Unfortunately this 73 page report starts by saying it is already out of
date, due to rapid development. However the analysis is reasonable and
new data is unlikely to change the conclusions.

What is of concern is that the report, along with other BISG documents,
is provided in PDF and RTF, not in a web based format. This is contrary
to the advice of AGIMO, the Government's own e-publishing experts. It is
of concern that the group advising the government on digital book
production is not able to produce its own report in an acceptable
digital publishing format. This calls into question the competence of
this group to provide advice to the Australian Government.

See my blog posting for web formatted excerpts from the:

* BISG Terms of Reference:
<http://blog.tomw.net.au/2010/11/australian-e-book-industry-report.html#bsigtor>
* Digital Technologies in Australia’s Book Industry, Executive Summary,
Jenny Lee, July 2010:
<http://blog.tomw.net.au/2010/11/australian-e-book-industry-report.html#bisgrep>


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science, The
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/