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Session Submission Summary

Building sustainable book supply chains through digital platforms: open licensing, content creation, and support for local publishers and authors

Wed, April 17, 3:15 to 4:45pm, Hyatt Regency, Floor: Bay (Level 1), Golden Gate

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Reading benefits children and adults alike in many ways, and research has shown a direct link to indicators such as improved self-esteem, socio-economic empowerment, and creativity. In fact, according to UNESCO (2017), “creating literate environments and societies is essential to the goals of eradicating poverty, reducing child mortality, curbing population growth, achieving gender equality and ensuring sustainable development, peace and equality.” Yet today’s students and lifelong learners can’t read without access to books.

Major progress has been made towards increasing primary school enrolment rates. Still, 617 million children and adolescents worldwide are unable to read, despite most of them having attended school for several years. One reason for this is that many do not have access to quality early grade reading resources in a language they understand. Digital technology provides ready access to books, platforms that enable easier global collaboration on content-creation, and impressive scalability to tackle this global problem.

This panel will present three initiatives that are driving a sustainable book supply chain through an ecosystems approach to book creation and dissemination that includes:

• Leveraging Creative Commons content for book creation and translation;
• Building public/private partnerships that support local publishers and authors to sustain a local book pipeline;
• Taking a format neutral approach to content creation and procurement by leveraging platforms that support both digital and print books.

The panel will be moderated by Linda Hiebert of the Global Book Alliance and include demonstrations of the platforms, efficacy findings from the three interventions, and applied research findings from local publishers in Sub-Saharan Africa who are taking a market-driven approach to supporting the digital book supply chain in their communities.

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