The National Library of Colombia Has Digitized More Than 30,000 Titles With the Help of the Aquafadas Digital Publishing System
Montpellier, France (PRWEB) June 30, 2014 -- Aquafadas, developer of digital publishing solutions, has been working with the National Library of Colombia to bring thousands of its historical digitized resources to tablets and the web. Founded in 1777, the library is the sole institution with access to the entire bibliographic heritage of Colombia’s nation. With texts, photographs and illustrations dating back to the 15th century, a large portion of the library’s resources must be preserved and therefore can only be viewed inside the building itself. The National Library needed to find a simple but effective solution to bring these resources to the public at large. After researching various digital publishing solution providers, Sabrina Guzmán, founder and CEO of Capicua, and digitalization advisor to the national library, discovered Aquafadas and the innovative tools the Digital Publishing System has to offer.
“[Aquafadas has a] very transparent workflow, good technical support, and a high level of interactivity and versatile solutions. Plus, it was a clean transfer from our last provider,” Guzmán says. “Our eBooks are made up from different resources – texts, illustrations, photographs – that belong to collections at the National Library of Colombia. Not long ago, these resources were of difficult access to the public, taking into account their physical vulnerability. Through digitalization, these resources are now open to the public, and our eBooks make them accessible to a wide audience, including students, school teachers and citizens in general, in inspiring new formats.”
With the help of the Aquafadas Digital Publishing System, the library is not only able to convert their resources for distribution on tablets, smartphones and the web, but they are also able to enhance them with interactive features. Within the app itself, avid readers can access an elegant digital library of both historical documents with authentic photographs and more modern publications that have been enhanced with informative videos, audio and HTML5 animations. Exciting games bring another level of interactivity to the app and attract readers to discover more. Guzmán states: “In our apps, you will find high quality interactive books produced as a means to explore new publishing formats, encouraging reading and expanding Colombian culture around the world.”
“Creating interactive content seems difficult. But thanks to Aquafadas’ plugin for InDesign, publishers benefit from a wide range of enrichments to enhance their work. And because it’s based on a tool they already know, it’s quite easy to learn. I’m proud to have helped the library to share its hidden treasures with the world through its stunning app,” adds Merce Roldos, a digital publishing consultant and Aquafadas partner for Spain and Latin America.
Since launching the campaign to digitize its massive collection of historical resources, the National Library of Colombia has converted more than 30,000 titles into digital format. Through an agreement with Colombia’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology and its “Computers for Education” program, the library’s digital books were installed on over 500,000 tablets between 2012-2014 and distributed to public schools as well as a number of village libraries throughout the country. Guzmán reports, “We expect that in a few years time, our eBooks will be installed on 400,000 new government tablets.”
The eBooks produced by the National Library of Colombia, with the help of Capicua, are part of the National Library Digital Laboratory (LABN), and were created as a way of exploring the digital book format in order to integrate it to the library’s collections.
About the Aquafadas Digital Publishing System
The Aquafadas Digital Publishing System is an ecosystem of seamlessly integrated apps that include InDesign Authoring, Cloud Authoring, ComicComposer, Aquafadas Viewer, AppFactory, Cloud Connect and MotionComposer. These apps are designed to manage any digital publishing scenario from digital content and app creation to distribution and marketing. Without writing a single line of code, publishers can either design custom iOS and Android apps or automatically convert PDF files into digital format for distribution across tablets, smartphones, eReaders and the web.
The Digital Publishing System also provides powerful marketing tools, including the ability to integrate advertising campaigns and offer one-click in-App purchases. Sales and reader behavior analysis, now a crucial part of digital publishing, can be done using analytical tools such as Google Analytics, which integrates directly with the Aquafadas Digital Publishing System.
About Aquafadas
Aquafadas, a pioneer in digital publishing technology, enables the creation and mass distribution of graphics rich, interactive digital content such as books, comics, corporate documents, magazines, and newspapers, across all major platforms including smartphones, tablets and the web. Businesses all over the world rely on Aquafadas’ purpose-built content creation and distribution solutions to achieve their digital publishing strategies, significantly expanding content reach while lowering overhead costs. Some of Aquafadas prestigious customers include Bayard, Carrefour, Egmont International, Kelby Media Group, Lagardère, Mondadori, Reader’s Digest, Sanoma, Standard & Poors, and Vodafone. Now 8 million end users are reading a publication created with Aquafadas solutions.
Aquafadas is a member of the International Digital Publishing Forum and IDEAlliance, which help to improve both ePUB and OpenEFT formats.
A Rakuten group business, Aquafadas also provides its technological expertise to Kobo, the world’s fastest growing e-reader provider. For more information about Aquafadas, please visit http://www.aquafadas.com.
Anya Oskolkova, Zazil Media Group, http://www.adorama.com, +1 (617) 817-6559, [email protected]
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