Events: IDPF Voting: Board Nomination

Dear Members of the IDPF,

I am seeking your vote for the Board.

I believe that the IDPF can play a crucial role in determining important aspects of digital publishing for the long term. Far beyond the obvious issues of file formats and standards, this is the time - unique in our age for its range of possible repercussions - for us to understand, to grasp, and to envision new forms of media, new forms of distribution, and new forms of interaction within the universe of people and ideas.

The time before us, which we must own not only for ourselves but for our readers and our contributors - this time will not be one defined merely by practice, by technology, or by standards. It will be defined by our ability to shape and embrace a new vision of reading, media, rights of access, the worth of intellectual contribution, and the immediacy of the need to protect and preserve our cultural endeavors for future generations.

As a board member, I will represent libraries, digital publishers, and users. I will speak for the right to borrow; to listen to spoken word; to lend, responsibly; to preserve; to use as flexibly - as we must permit as we must encourage - while honoring the property and moral rights of creators and distributors. I will represent the opportunity to help forge our expectations for knowledge, for sharing, and for engagement. What breathes life into our efforts is after all not just the words, not the property, but the promise held in the ideas and the imagining.

By way of my background, I've worked in publishing (at Random House, in mass market), city governments (New York and San Francisco), and universities (Univ of California and New York Univ). At NYU, I was privileged to help represent the American Library Association in the OEBF Rights & Rules committee. I am currently the Director of Strategic Technology in Academic Information Services at the Univ of California Office of the President, helping to provide strategy for content based units like UC TV, the California Digital Library, and the UC Press.

I am deeply engaged in envisioning ways for technology to transform publishing, new forms of education and outreach, and the issues of rights, access, and the preservation of knowledge. I hope you will help me in reaching out to shape our future together, in collaboration.

Thank you for your support.

Peter Brantley
University of California Press