Re: Garth Conboy

Such sad news. I met Garth more than 20 years ago at an early open ebook meeting, held in a hotel just north of SFO. Can’t recall the exact date, and I can’t delve into my email archives at the moment, but the setting remains vivid.   At the time, my little company was working with the  DAISY Consortium and the Library of Congress National Library Service on DAISY/NISO, pushing web-standards to enable accessible audio books.  We had heard about  an  ebook standards meeting taking place out west, and I hopped a flight from Newark to San Francisco to attend with the goal of raising awareness within the emergent ebook community on the importance of accessibility and the standards-based  work we were already doing. I felt that I might be treated as an uninvited guest, but after I raised my hand from the back of the room and raised the issue of accessibility, I knew I was in the right place. Convergence and interoperability of open standards for accessible reading material was something we could all (mostly) agree on. Garth was one of the early pioneers who got it.



The past year has been a personally difficult time for many of us, and I offer my most sincere condolences to Garth’s family and colleagues at our collective loss.



Mark

From: "Siegman, Tzviya" <tsiegman@wiley.com>
Date: Thursday, July 1, 2021 at 8:47 AM
To: "public-epub-wg@w3.org" <public-epub-wg@w3.org>, "PBG Steering Committee (Public)" <public-publishing-sc@w3.org>, W3C Publishing Business Group <public-publishingbg@w3.org>, W3C EPUB 3 Community Group <public-epub3@w3.org>, "public-epubcheck@w3.org" <public-epubcheck@w3.org>, W3C Comm Team <w3t-comm@w3.org>
Subject: Garth Conboy
Resent-From: <public-epub3@w3.org>
Resent-Date: Thursday, July 1, 2021 at 8:44 AM


A giant of the ebook world has left us. Garth Conboy (Google) died on June 29 in La Jolla, California. Garth was truly an ebook pioneer, helping lead the effort to create the very first ebook spec, OEB 1.0, in 1999. He had a leadership role in every version of EPUB since then, as well as being a primary editor of those specs. He served as chair of the IDPF board of directors, and was instrumental in bringing EPUB to W3C. He co-chaired the Publishing Working Group, which created the Audiobook spec. It’s fair to say that EPUB would not have happened without Garth’s vision, knowledge, and preternatural good nature. We will miss his good humor, his broad perspective, and his cheerful voice that will never again say, “sounds good to me.”

Google is organizing some remembrances of Garth, both stories and photos. These will be bundled together to make both a printed book and an EPUB to present to Garth’s family. Please provide your submissions by July 12th. If you have any trouble accessing the Google files, please send your submissions to Tzviya.

Please share your stories at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dUSEa-ygk9NsgRkzMQA0rxL_h7umdgD3Yfkm-nMQxP0/edit?usp=sharing<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Furldefense.com%2Fv3%2F__https%3A%2Fdocs.google.com%2Fdocument%2Fd%2F1dUSEa-ygk9NsgRkzMQA0rxL_h7umdgD3Yfkm-nMQxP0%2Fedit%3Fusp%3Dsharing__%3B!!N11eV2iwtfs!86mpD5aZIQIJZdWlf3MrNLDFWCE9gKdH-Ve0IurbK7be4qybHeacDfhIdTumvg%24&data=04%7C01%7Cmhakkinen%40ets.org%7C242413ddf377405c4ad208d93c8e1c35%7C0ba6e9b760b34fae92f37e6ddd9e9b65%7C0%7C0%7C637607404490914937%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=dWG%2FZSWFG6cG9wpV7PB7%2FVWBsrba%2BTCbPDAUmV%2BA1Mo%3D&reserved=0>

Please share photos at: https://photos.app.goo.gl/6LaHJxCtS88gX6PU6<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Furldefense.com%2Fv3%2F__https%3A%2Fphotos.app.goo.gl%2F6LaHJxCtS88gX6PU6__%3B!!N11eV2iwtfs!86mpD5aZIQIJZdWlf3MrNLDFWCE9gKdH-Ve0IurbK7be4qybHeacDfgPWNzImQ%24&data=04%7C01%7Cmhakkinen%40ets.org%7C242413ddf377405c4ad208d93c8e1c35%7C0ba6e9b760b34fae92f37e6ddd9e9b65%7C0%7C0%7C637607404490924933%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=%2BmKFNP4gsovBhnpuK%2B2Bw8UsKpBBcAaAtxtOrWHsJ8I%3D&reserved=0>


Tzviya Siegman
Information Standards Principal
Wiley
201-748-6884
tsiegman@wiley.com<mailto:tsiegman@wiley.com>


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