Today we are happy, no ecstatic, to announce the release of one new ONIX converter and an upgraded BNC Excel Template to ONIX converter. This might not be exciting to everyone, but to us metadata junkies this is a little like a Data Festivus. So exactly what do we have?
IDPF Digital Book 2010: A Short Recap
Earlier this week (a lifetime at Laguardia ago) I attended the IDPF’s Digital Book 2010 at BEA in New York. The show was very well attended (700’ish in attendance) with a great international representation and a large number of Canadians in attendance. It was nice to see some success stories and hear where things are heading with regards to epub and IDPF. Parts of the conference felt a little ‘sales-y’, but there was enough implementation and technical information to keep me, and I think many others, interested. Here are a few of my takeaways…
Confluence As a Web-Based Publishing System
In conferences and sessions we often discuss XML based publishing workflows…a concept I love, but I term I hate. Concept — content that is single sourced, marked up and is used to drive a plethora of end uses (i.e. pbook, ebook, web content, app, etc…). Why do I hate it? It is scary, maybe not to everyone, but to enough people in the “content business” that the term itself can often kill any hope of implementation.
Here’s why we need solutions that take the scary out of XML publishing workflows.
Back to the Future
The other night I went to a panel discussion billed as the Future of the Bookstore and I have been trying to collect my thoughts about it ever since but not sure I have yet. Predicting the future is a tough business and maybe not a fruitful one unless you’re Ray Kurzweil or an investment banker.
The Reader
Post-BookCamp Brain Explosion
This past weekend, the second-ever BookCamp Toronto brought together publishing types of all sorts for a day of discussion, discovery, and drinking (the latter starting as early as 10:30 am, in Michael Tamblyn’s now-legendary Kobo Q&A/ summer wine tasting). The BookCamp “unconference” model is an intriguing contrast to the usual progression of talks/presentations/limited discussion time.
BookCampTO 2010: More Engagement, More Ideas
BookCampTO, my personal favourite (un)conference, rolled around again this past weekend. High fives to the organizing committee of Erin Balser, Mark Bertils, Alexa Clark, and Hugh McGuire—great work all around!
So, why do I love BookCamp so much?
ONIXEdit vs. EXA Editor
EXA Editor is the venerable XML editor for use with ONIX that BookNet Canada made available as a free download for the past few years. It was an excellent product with a not-so-excellent GUI (nerdese for your ability to find and click on things) and a useful tool for learning about ONIX. A number of publishers’ ONIX programs are, or were, based on it.Here’s how the new ONIXEdit stacks up.
Why I Went to BookCamp Instead of Sleeping In
This was my second year attending BookCamp Toronto. I admit to having high expectations for this unconference ever since last year when I came away feeling ignited! Sadly I didn’t get the same fire started for me this time around. I’m not saying that BookCamp did not provide great discussion but that little extra something was missing. I think what it came down to was that I am exhausted!
BNC Visits the Espresso Book Machine at McMaster University
Earlier this week, the BookNet team took a field trip to Titles McMaster University Bookstore to check out their Espresso Book Machine (EBM). Mark Lefebvre, BNC Board member and our gracious host for the day, took us on a tour of Titles and gave us a live demo of the EBM (with some help from Laura the EBM magician).
Don’t know what an EBM is?
