Board Election 2026

In 2026, two seats are to be renewed: those previously occupied by Ted van der Togt (National Library of the Netherlands), Basile Mignonneau (Association Valentin Haüy); and one seat is added, reflecting the evolution in the number of members of the association (now 130).

Self-nomination period: June 20, 2026, to September 15, 2026.

Voting period: September 21 to October 09, 2026.

By our bylaws, any member in good standing is eligible to self-nominate a representative. Current or past members of the Board of Directors can reapply for a new period of two years.

Three members ran for office in this election:

• Ewout Clarenburg (KB national library of the Netherlands)
• Basile Mignonneau (Association Valentin Haüy)
• Samuel Petit (Mangas.io)

Here are their candidate statements:

Ewout Clarenburg

Dear EDRLab Members,

I am pleased to submit my candidacy for a position on the Board of Directors.

Currently I work at the KB national library on our e-lending platform ‘de online Bibliotheek’.

In the 14 years that I have been working on this, we have grown from a collection from a few thousand e-books to 50.000 e-books, 20.000 audiobooks and 3.000 Magazines.

We now serve over 600.000 members in cooperation with public libraries.

As I am convinced that a good reading experience is not only the result of good content, but also good reading software, I endorse the importance of standards and cooperation between stakeholders in the digital publishing chain. Libraries should be involved in this, to make sure all the different needs of the library users are met.

Developments like OPDS, LCP and accessibility are currently all under discussion at our library, and we would like to be part of the developments that we also depend on.

I would be honoured to support EDRLab’s efforts to foster open innovation in the digital publishing landscape and to represent the voice of libraries at the board level.

Thank you for considering my nomination. I would welcome the opportunity to discuss how I could contribute to EDRLab’s mission.

Kind regards,
Ewout Clarenburg
KB national library of the Netherlands

Basile Mignonneau

Dear EDRLab members,

I am writing to renew my candidacy for the EDRLab Board of Directors.

With more than a decade of experience in digital publishing, first on the publisher side at Réunion des musées nationaux and Hachette Livre, and now in the field of accessibility as Head of the Adapted Digital Books Department at Association Valentin Haüy, I have had the opportunity to witness — and contribute to — major changes in the digital publishing ecosystem.
At Association Valentin Haüy, we produce digital braille and Full DAISY books for nearly 18,000 users. Our experience has convinced us that high-quality, born-accessible EPUB publications are essential if we want to overcome the book famine that still affects millions of people with print disabilities.

Since June 2025, the European Accessibility Act has fundamentally changed the context in which publishers, distributors, reading systems and accessibility organisations operate. The challenge is no longer only to raise awareness of accessibility, but to ensure that it is implemented effectively, consistently and sustainably throughout the publishing chain.
This is precisely where I believe cooperation within EDRLab is particularly valuable. Association Valentin Haüy has been working with EDRLab for several years, sharing expertise and contributing to projects designed to make digital reading more accessible. Our collaboration has included projects such as Read My Book, which makes DAISY books available directly through Amazon Echo devices, as well as broader work with publishers and technology providers to better understand and address the needs of readers with disabilities.
We are also actively exploring new approaches to accessible publishing, including ways of making highly visual publications such as comics and manga more accessible, in cooperation with publishing and research partners.

Alongside this work, Association Valentin Haüy is a member of the DAISY Consortium through DAISY France, a group of six French organisations working in the field of visual impairment. I represent DAISY France on the DAISY Consortium Board, which gives me the opportunity to contribute to international discussions on accessible publishing standards, technologies and practices.

I believe that EDRLab has an important role to play in the years ahead: bringing together publishers, technology providers, accessibility organisations and readers to ensure that accessibility is not treated as a separate layer, but as an integral part of digital publishing.
As a member of the Board, I would like to continue contributing to this collective effort, with particular attention to accessibility standards, EPUB production, metadata, reading systems and emerging technologies. I would also bring the perspective of an organisation working directly with thousands of readers with disabilities, helping to ensure that technical and strategic decisions remain closely connected to their actual needs.

I would be very pleased to continue working with EDRLab members and partners across Europe and beyond, and to contribute actively to the decisions and projects that will shape the future of accessible digital reading.

Kind regards,
Basile Mignonneau
Association Valentin Haüy

Samuel Petit

Dear EDRLab members,

I am standing for the Board to bring EDRLab new financial resources and applied research capabilities, extending the means available to pursue its mission for the publishing world beyond its outstanding development work.
Innovation requires sustained funding. My first priority will be to establish a regular policy through which EDRLab can initiate or join national, European and international consortia in the fields at the heart of its work: interoperability, accessibility, open standards and reading technologies. These programmes can finance increasingly ambitious projects while strengthening Readium, Thorium, LCP and the other common assets on which publishers, distributors, libraries, platforms and technology providers rely.

I have already begun without waiting for the election. Mangas.io, La Rochelle University and EDRLab are partners in two distinct funded projects, one supported by the ANR and the other by France 2030. Together, they bring new resources directly to EDRLab while helping publishing enter the age of AI in a controlled manner, respectful of works and rightsholders. This should become a repeatable and open model, assembling the members, companies and universities best suited to each objective, with results available to the entire community.

As Chief R&D Officer at Mangas.io, an EDRLab member, and founding deputy director of SAIL, I can provide a bridge between academic research and industrial implementation. Born from the analysis of comics and manga, SAIL is expanding towards complex fixed-layout publications and publishing at large, bringing computer science and AI together with digital humanities and, increasingly, ergonomics. Current accessibility work already involves universities in La Rochelle, Orléans and Toulouse, while wider international collaborations are being explored.

This capacity can help EDRLab enrich standards with metadata describing both publications and their internal structure, carry their support into Readium, Thorium and other reading systems, and unlock accessible navigation, content remediation and new uses. Mangas.io, where I lead innovation in reading experiences, will provide a privileged environment in which to implement and demonstrate advances developed through EDRLab for the benefit of the wider ecosystem.

My commitment reaches back to the IDPF era and has continued throughout EDRLab’s history. Having initiated and chaired the EDRLab and W3C BD Comics Manga Working Group, I now want us to advance `.divina` into a first-class open format for visual narratives, supported by an ambitious reference implementation. EDRLab’s publishing perspective complements the W3C’s Web expertise by keeping standards rooted in editorial realities.

A stronger EDRLab should not compete with its members or technology providers, but provide the open and interoperable foundations upon which they can build. As carefully authored and reliable works confront an endless stream of short, social and often untrustworthy content, those foundations can give publishing the means to compete for attention without surrendering what makes it worth reading.

Samuel Petit
Chief R&D Officer, [Mangas.io](http://Mangas.io) & EDRLab member
Founding Deputy Director, SAIL LabCom.