BISG has announced the publication of a new Policy Statement endorsing EPUB 3 as the accepted and preferred standard for representing, packaging, and encoding structured and semantically enhanced Web content — including XHTML, CSS, SVG, images, and other resources — for distribution in a single-file format. BISG member companies, and other industry stakeholders, can go here to download a copy.
Reviewed and approved by BISG’s 36-member board of directors, BISG Policy Statement POL-1201: Endorsement of EPUB 3 addresses the critical need for the global book publishing industry to rally around a single standard for the creation of digital content in order to impede recent instances of fragmentation beginning to seep into the supply chain.
Andrew Savikas, BISG board member and CEO of Safari Books Online, said, “Safari Books Online strongly endorses EPUB as our preferred distribution and delivery format. We’re committed to extending that support to EPUB 3, particularly in new products and services that can showcase the enhanced design, multimedia, and interactivity capabilities of the EPUB 3 standard.”
To guide industry stake holders through the transition, BISG published an EPUB 3 Support Grid in June 2012.The Grid is a comprehensive reference tool for understanding what enhancements and features of EPUB 3 are currently usable on which devices, apps, and reading systems. Due to the rapidly changing nature of EPUB 3 support, the Grid will be frequently updated in the first year of publication. The current version is available at http://www.bisg.org/what-we-do-12-152-epub-30-support-grid.php.
