It’s been 15 years since BookNet Canada started bringing people together to learn about technology, data, and collaboration in the publishing industry. As part of the celebration, we’ve started an ongoing blog series where we bring back sessions and break them down into digestible takeaways. And today we’re bringing you a list of the 10 most-viewed videos from Tech Forum — and our beloved (now incorporated into Tech Forum) ebookcraft conference.
Let the watching party begin!
Jump right in
The Past, Present, and Future of Digital Publishing — Dave Cramer
When nothing ever goes out of print: Maintaining backlist ebooks — Teresa Elsey
Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World — Clive Thompson
The past, present, and future of digital publishing
EPUB has been around since 2007; EPUB 3 came out in 2011. What might the future of ebooks look like? Should we use EPUB 3.2? Will there ever be an EPUB 4? Are Web Publications real? This session is part history lesson, part unhinged rant, part futile attempt to predict the future.
Presented by Dave Cramer at ebookcraft 2019.
Information doesn't want to be free
There are three iron laws of the information age creativity, freedom, and business, woven deep into the fabric of the Internet's design, the functioning of markets, and the global system of regulation and trade agreements. You can't attain any kind of sustained commercial, creative success without understanding these laws — but more importantly, the future of freedom itself depends on getting them right.
Presented by Cory Doctorow at Tech Forum 2015.
Collective effervescence
Today’s publishing industry is tasked with the monumental responsibility of helping democratize access to experiences that have traditionally had a very difficult time reaching mainstream audiences. In the same vein, we are seeing the power it has to elevate niche voices into the spotlight when it comes to the connected and vigilant social realities of our times. All of these opportunities can be challenging and overwhelming for those at the helm. At Tech Forum 2018, Saadia Muzaffar guided attendees through an exploration of how leaders in this sector can reimagine their work and its impact, and reconcile that with the realities of business and bottom lines.
Presented by Saadia Muzaffar at Tech Forum 2018.
Book industry state of the nation 2020
President and CEO of BookNet Canada, Noah Genner shares statistics on Canadian book buying, reading, and consumer habits in 2019 are shared in this chart-friendly presentation.
Presented by Noah Genner at Tech Forum 2020.
When nothing ever goes out of print: Maintaining backlist ebooks
When ebooks make a publisher's dream of never having books go out of print become a reality, what editorial, production, and technical obstacles arise? Of the ebooks Teresa Elsey's group release each month, something like two-thirds are updates of existing ebooks rather than new ebooks. Besides the technology advances that affect the quality of those earlier conversions, those backlist ebooks aren't getting any more semantic, aren't getting any more legal, aren't getting any more accurate, and have increasingly irrelevant metadata. What challenges and questions arise when books turn into software and ebooks don't go away after you've made them?
Presented by Teresa Elsey at ebookcraft 2016.
Book industry state of the nation 2021
President and CEO of BookNet Canada, Noah Genner shares statistics on Canadian book buying, reading, and consumer habits in 2020 are shared in this chart-friendly presentation.
Presented by Noah Genner at Tech Forum 2021.
Panel: Women in publishing
A frank discussion on the challenges and opportunities for women in today’s publishing industry.
Moderated by Kristin Cochrane, with the participation of panelists Saffron Beckwith, Bhavna Chauhan, Scaachi Koul, and Christen Thomas at Tech Forum 2018.
Audiobook metadata in ONIX
In this session for metadata mavens, #eprdctn professionals, and audio oracles alike, EDItEUR’s Chris Saynor discusses all facets of working with ONIX metadata for audio titles. What's different in ONIX for audiobooks? And how do you send good metadata for audio, including chapter-level metadata?
Presented by Chris Saynor at Tech Forum 2020.
Coders: The making of a new tribe and the remaking of the world
Facebook’s algorithms shaping the news. The literature of our time mediated through e-readers. Revolution on Twitter and romance on Tinder. We live in a world constructed of code — and coders are the ones who built it. Acclaimed tech writer Clive Thompson shares a brilliant anthropological reckoning with the most powerful tribe in the world today: computer programmers.
Clive picks up the thread of his own long-abandoned coding skills as he reckons with what superb programming looks like; ponders the morality and politics of code, including its implications for civic life and the economy; and wrestles with the major controversies of our era, from the “disruption” fetish of Silicon Valley to the struggle for inclusion by marginalized groups.
To understand the world today, we need to understand code and its consequences. Clive gives us a definitive look into the heart of the machine.
Presented by Clive Thompson at ebookcraft 2019.
Type 3.0: The future of typography today
Intangible font software renders impermanent text in a myriad of electronic formats. The fast pace of change requires type designers and typographers to exercise care and craft-sense in order to produce pages that are beautiful and functional. The foundation of quality starts with typefaces that perform reliably and beautifully under a wide range of conditions. This talk will touch on the challenges and solutions of Type 3.0 for engineers, designers, and authors.
Presented by Steve Matteson at ebookcraft 2015.
Looking for more? Visit the Tech Forum website to find more of our upcoming sessions. And don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel; the Tech Forum presentation recordings are added as they become available.
You can easily request advance reading copies (ARCs) on CataList.