e-Publishing For Knowledge and Profit

This week and next I am talking about IT and Publishing:

Quality e-Publishing Support for the ICT Profession

This is for the ACS Software Quality Assurance Sig at the Australian National University this Wednesday. I will be talking about the digital library for free open source publishing by the ACS. This uses existing open source software for the mechanics of the publishing. What breaks new ground is trying to do scholarly publishing with web advertisements to cover the cost.

Electronic publishing for Editors

Wednesday next week I am talking to the Canberra Society of Editors at the National Library of Australia on free and low cost computer tools and services to research, produce, publish, distribute and sell books on-line. The editors produce government publications as well as private fiction and non-fiction works. The NLA is an apt place to talk about this as they are one of the world leaders in e-publishing. One of my claims is that you can walk into the NLA with nothing and walk out having published a book. NLA provide everything you need, from reference materials to on-line computer access.

ps: One new development this week is that Open Office Org have released version 2.0.4 of their free word processor with limited LaTex support and better PDF. OO is commonly used as part of publishing systems as it is free and allows conversion of Microsoft Word documents to an XML format which can be typeset.