Shortlist Announced for the 2020 Accessible Books Consortium International Excellence Award
February 10, 2020
The list of finalists for the 2020 ABC International Excellence Award for Accessible Publishing has been released. This year’s winners will be announced during the awards ceremony held at the London Book Fair on March 10, 2020. The finalists were selected by an expert jury composed of representatives of authors, publishers, standards bodies, and organizations representing people who are visually impaired, as well as accessibility experts.
This award recognizes outstanding leadership and achievements in advancing the accessibility of commercial e-books and other digital publications for persons who are blind, visually impaired or otherwise print-disabled.
Finalists:
| Publishers | Initiatives |
|---|---|
| Argentina - Ediciones Godot | Italy - Fondazione LIA |
| Canada - House of Anansi Press | Lithuania - EIFL - Electronic Information for Libraries |
| United States - Macmillan Learning | United Arab Emirates - Kalimat Foundation for Children Empowerment |
Upon hearing the news, Laura Brady, Director, Cross-Media Group at the House of Anansi stated:
Considering the people and organizations who have been recognized with the award before us, we are thrilled to be on the shortlist. It is a real honour to have the work we do to publish in as many formats and accessibly as possible recognized. Because we are a trade and children’s publisher, we are conscious of the need to be democratic and accessible in all things. We have much work to do, but this shortlist nod is a nice recognition of how hard we work at it.
Last year’s ABC award winners were EDITORIAL 5 (ED5) of Brazil in the publisher category and eKitabu of Kenya in the initiative category.
Since naming the first winners of the ABC International Excellence Award for Accessible Publishing, we have received a tremendously positive response. This year we received a number of outstanding nominations, which demonstrate promising trends in the production of accessible books. We are delighted to be able to celebrate these achievements, which result in the increase in the number of accessible materials available at a global level for the benefit of people who are print-disabled.
Monica Halil Lövblad, Head, ABC.
The context
According to a 2017 estimate by the World Health Organization, 253 million people worldwide are visually impaired. More than 90% of these are resident in developing countries, where the World Blind Union estimates that people who are blind have only a one in ten chance of going to school or getting a job. The lack of accessible books is a very real barrier to getting an education and leading an independent, productive life. For this reason, ABC seeks to recognize leadership and achievements in advancing the accessibility of e-books and other digital materials.
About the Accessible Books Consortium
ABC is a public–private partnership led by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a U.N. specialized agency that brings together all of the key players – organizations representing people who are blind, visually impaired or otherwise print-disabled, authors, publishers, collective management organizations, libraries and other authorized entities, as well as standards bodies.
The Consortium was launched in June 2014 to implement the goals of the WIPO administered Marrakesh Treaty. Through an effective international alliance of relevant state and non-state actors, ABC seeks to increase, and distribute, the number of books worldwide in accessible formats - such as Braille, audio, e-text and large print.
ABC works in three areas, namely:
- Capacity Building – training and funding is provided by ABC in developing countries for the production of books in accessible formats.
- ABC Global Book Service - a global library catalogue of over 560,000 titles in accessible formats in 76 languages that enables participating libraries for the blind from around the world to share items in their collections.
- Accessible Publishing – the promotion of accessible book production techniques within the publishing industry so that e-books are usable by both sighted people and those with print disabilities.
For further information, please see the 2019 Report on the Accessible Books Consortium or visit www.AccessibleBooksConsortium.org