APACE Skills Analysis Report
The APACE project, launched in January 2024, aims to enhance the skills of the European publishing industry in the area of accessibility, reducing the current skills gap and contributing to the training of a new generation of experts. Three publisher associations and three organizations dedicated to accessibility in publishing form the core of APACE and coordinating the five entities is Fondazione LIA. One of the first actions was a skills analysis report as described bu LIA’s Elisa Molinari:
APACE’s starting point will be from the outset “to gather facts and figures on the current level of adoption of accessibility practices in Europe, with particular regard to born accessible models, which integrate accessibility into the production and distribution processes of digital books; thus identifying the specific skills and knowledge needed at each stage of publishing workflows to achieve the goal of accessibility.”
This skills gap anaysis is complete and the extensive full report has now been published.The results of this preliminary activity will enable the detailed definition of the activities of the next phases of the project, directing them toward strengthening and growth. The report includes a number of interesting interviews with key players in this space, including DAISY’s Richard Orme and Avneesh Singh
There are some fascinating statistics available as a result of this in-depth analysis and it is very encouraging to read that there is such a “proactive response of the European publishing sector and libraries serving persons with print disabilities to this evolving landscape. Notably, 72% of publishing houses, including a significant number of micro-enterprises, recognize the impending impact of the EAA and about 37.4% of publishers produce accessible e-books, with a similar percentage intending to do so by the end of 2024.”
Our congratulations to the team who put this report together and we look forward to next steps as a result of this invaluable information that has been gathered.
