IPA is very concerned about the degradation of the freedom to publish situation in Hong Kong after five speech therapists, turned authors and publishers, were sentenced to 19 months in prison. The five, which published a series of children’s picture books, were found guilty of ‘conspiracy to print, publish, distribute, display and/or reproduce seditious publications’ by a Hong Kong District Court according to reports in the Guardian, New York Times and CNN.
IPA will have a full programme of open and invite-only meetings as well as a dedicated Africa Publishing Innovation Fund seminar at Frankfurt Book Fair this year. We are also delighted to see the Frankfurt Book Fair rights platform highlight SDG Publishers Compact signatories.
If you missed our information webinars on 23 August you can watch it now - headline information include Congress registration is free, there is a stunning two-day programme, attractive hotel packages and a post Congress trip to Bali. Read more:
Nominations are open for the ABC International Excellence Award for Accessible Publishing until 30 September 2022. The award recognises a publisher and a project initiative that each demonstrate outstanding leadership and achievements in advancing the accessibility of commercial e-books or other digital publications for persons who are blind, visually impaired or otherwise print-disabled.
Michiel Kolman, Chair of the IPA's Inclusive Publishing and Literacy Committee spoke to Dan Conway, CEO of the Publishers Association (UK) about their Inclusivity Action Plan and their past work on diversity and inclusion.
I write this post while returning home from a board meeting of the Accessible Books Consortium (ABC) and the celebration of the Marrakesh Treaty’s 10th anniversary at the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO, in Geneva.