Dear IDPF Members,

I am asking for your vote in the upcoming election for the IDPF Board seat. I am also asking those of you that know and have worked with me to contact a friend in the IDPF and put in a good word on my behalf.

Currently, I am not on the IDPF Board, but I did serve for three terms. I am proud to be one of the founding members of the IDPF. The DAISY Consortium, who I represent, has solidly been behind the OeBF and now the IDPF since its inception. The DAISY Consortium Board has encouraged me to run for the IDPF Board again.

I reviewed the self nomination statements that I made in 2004 and earlier in 2006 and still stand behind everything that I have said in the past. From that perspective, I have not changed my position. However, the IDPF is clearly changing, growing, and the technology in the world today continues to evolve. Some additional principles need to be restated.

Access to Information in the "Information Age" is a Fundamental Human Right

People developing new information technology have a moral, legal, and economic incentive to produce the information and the reading systems in ways that will work for everybody. I happen to be in an excellent position to assist the IDPF and the publishing industry to develop highly functional and accessible systems. If elected, I will do everything in my power to ensure that the next generation of conforming reading systems and content are fully accessible to persons who are blind and print disabled. We do not want to be in a position where products are banned from our schools and colleges, because do not meet legal accessibility requirements. Quite the opposite, we want to bring more people to use eBook technologies, because it makes them independent and enthusiastic readers.

Digital Publishing is a Global Market for Everybody: It Needs to Grow

The IDPF, the specifications, and the market must grow way beyond our current thinking. The IDPF has a newly formed working group updating the publication structure specification. This is good news, but it cannot stop after a 6-8 month process; it must continue to expand. There are many organizations like DAISY, OASIS, Open Reader, and the W3C involved with digital publishing. I believe we need to collaborate with these organizations and find ways to harmonize the specifications to be able to address more kinds of publications. We do not need to recreate the wheel, but instead build on these organization's good work. Many of us are introducing these concepts in the publication structure working group and hope that it will come to fruition. We do not want a "war of formats;" instead we want to see the seamless presentation of ePublications from many (or even any) XML vocabulary. It should be made clear that I am completely behind XML, and open non-proprietary standards, and strongly support royalty free approaches to specifications and DRM systems.

Note: I hope the majority of the IDPF Members want somebody on the Board constantly promoting non-proprietary and royalty free standards.

I continue to support the concept of interoperable DRM. Still today we have individual companies proposing their proprietary DRM with their proprietary DRM supported reading system. As an end user, the last thing I want is to have ten different reading systems to read my digital books. I want to pick from the best user interfaces that provide the best reading experience. I don't believe we will have this option until we have interoperable DRM.

Accessibility of eBooks by Persons with Print Disabilities

I am blind and have advocated for access to eBooks by persons with disabilities. This should not be a bourdon on publishers; it should be a by-product of the correct application of the specification presented by a reading system that is well designed and compatible with current Assistive Technology (AT). Nobody in the disability community believes that every device should be accessible, but everybody does feel that the same content should be available on a device or a PC/MAC/LINUX reading system that works for them. This is where interoperability comes in.

Very few people consider persons who are blind a significant portion of the entire market; true. However, reading differences are required to grow the market. Look at the number of people who read for recreation today; it is appalling! Digital publishing, and many of the features and functions that are needed by persons with disabilities can help the market grow. For example, persons who are learning English as a second language can clearly benefit from a synchronized audio with text rendering of the content. A well designed reading system can serve both of these user groups equally well, and also meet accessibility requirements in education.

Please Vote for me, George Kerscher

I humbly ask for your vote. I want to see the IDPF through to a place where rich XML content can be used by everybody in the global society through powerful, highly-functional reading systems. I want to see the publishing industry thrive in a global marketplace where hungry readers enjoy the new digital reading experience.

George Kerscher, Senior Officer, Accessible Information
Recording For the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D)
http://www.rfbd.org
Secretary General, DAISY Consortium
http://www.daisy.org
Co-chair Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), a division of the W3C
http://www.w3c.org/wai