The BookSmarts Podcast, with Joshua Tallent
Arts:Books
Standards are an important driving force in every civilization. Standards help us all agree on how we define things, and provide opportunities for us to more effectively engage with each other in trade and in other ways.
There is an interesting article in Science Magazine about how traders in the ancient Near East and Europe, during the Bronze Age, developed standardized weights and measures over time that allowed them to more easily trade goods with people from other parts of the world. The process of creating these standardized weights took place over a long period of time, but the weights are surprisingly consistent despite the time and distance.
Standardization is much more complex today, and we now have international standards for weights like the kilogram. The Kilogram standard was developed in 1799, and a single cylinder of platinum-iridium that resides in Paris, France, has been used since 1889 as the internationally-recognized standard for a kilogram of mass. That changed in 2019, when scientists and governments around the world defined the Kilogram instead based on a newly defined value of Planck's Constant, in a process that took many years and many scientific experiments to define. Veritasium has an interesting video about this process.
All of this really leads to the point of this episode: standards are important. There is a lot of work being done in the publishing industry to define and update standards for things like BISAC subject codes, EPUB, ISBN, and ISNI. There are committees and working groups (especially at BISG) that discuss these standards, discuss best practices, and help the publishing industry advance.
I highly encourage you to get involved with these organizations and join the committees that are developing and discussing these standards. More voices are always welcomed, and your unique input is needed.
--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/booksmarts/messageEpisode 43: Beat Barblan on the Role of Bowker in the Industry
Episode 42: Marika Flatt on Book Publicity
Episode 41: Jane Friedman on Spotify Audiobooks and Author Earnings
Episode 40: Tom Richardson on ONIX Best Practices & Standards
Episode 39: Kathi Inman Berens, Ph.D. & Rachel Noorda, Ph.D. on Gen Z and Millennial Survey
Episode 38: Miriam Warren on International Mergers & Acquisitions
Episode 37: Victoria Sutherland on Reviews and Opportunities for Independent Publishers
Episode 36: Klaus Krogh on Sustainable Typesetting and Bible Design
Episode 35: Mary Carlomagno on Book Visibility
Episode 34: Laura Brady on Accessibility
Episode 33: Michele Cobb on Publishing Associations and Awards Programs
Episode 32: Thad McIlroy on Publishing Startups
Episode 31: David Marlin on Royalty Management and Company Security
Episode 30: Emma Watson on Subscription Ebook Sales Models
Episode 29: Angela Bole on Independent Publishing
Episode 28: Charles Watkinson on Open Access
Episode 27: Kevin Franco on Book Marketing Strategies
Episode 26: Pete Larson on the Current Supply Chain Situation
Episode 25: BISG - Future Proofing Your Workflow
Episode 24: Cory Verner on the Growth of Audiobooks
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