The E-Book Consortium of Korea, with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, will host its first "E-Book Standardization Forum" at the Sejong Center on Thursday. The first meeting of its kind, the event comes as part of a serious effort by the private sector to introduce new standards into the online book industry. Being a new market in Korea, the industry has yet to establish standards to govern various aspects of the industry such as which system to use to download electronic books.
According to the Committee for E-Book Standardization, a group of experts has been formed to accommodate the needs of the nascent industry. The last three months the group has been studying how other countries have standardized their electronic publications industries, including the "Open eBook Publication Structures" of the United States and the "JepaX" of Japan, both of which now serve as international models of e-book regulation. The results of the group's research, along with other findings, will be discussed at the forum.
The industry is trying to expedite the standardization process, to jump start the industry and stimulate the exchanges of content as well as other related technologies. According to the Committee for E-Book Standardization, the new standards will be formulated by mid-May.
(KOIS)
