During the annual conference for the American Society for Indexing (ASI), held in San Antonio, Texas, on Friday, April 19, 2013, a Digital Trends Task Force (DTTF) Update was given as part of the Plenary Session. The co-chairs are David Ream and Jan Wright.
The mission of the ASI DTTF is to gather information about changes in digital publishing practices as they affect indexes. Also, members of the DTTF strive to interface with leading digital publishing companies, e-Reader hardware and software suppliers, standards developers, and industry partners to find solutions to ensure inclusion of usable indexes in nonfiction digital book formats and e-books. Another mission of the DTTF is to inform ASI members regarding digital trands in a timely manner so that indexers can prepare for and participate in technology-driven and process changes.
Members of the DTTF have been working to develop EPUB 3 Indexing Standards, as covered in the last blog posting. Noting that functionality for indexes for e-Books was broken, members of the DTTF worked with leading software developers such as Adobe in digital publishing. The next version of Adobe InDesign, Creative Cloud, currently available by subscription, will offer embedded linked indexes for e-Books.
The DTTF used four keywords to describe the approach to the development of e-Book indexes: monetization, discovery, navigation, and metadata or aboutness.
Future blog postings will cover other sessions at the ASI conference. For more information about the services provided by the author of this blog, see the Stellar Searches LLC website, http://www.stellarsearches.com