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The Istituto Della Enciclopedia Italiana Adopts Quark Dynamic Publishing Solution

Wednesday 25. March 2009 - To Streamline the Production Processes Used to Create Specialized Multi-channel Encyclopedias, The Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana has Chosen Quark Dynamic Publishing Solution

Quark Inc. today announced that The Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, founded in 1925 by Giovanni Treccani and today one of the largest knowledge publications companies in Italy, has chosen Quark Dynamic Publishing Solution to automate the publishing processes for its editions and catalogues.

Treccani’s publications cover the entire breadth of human knowledge. In eighty years since its inception the Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana has produced works which have met with universal acclaim, providing researchers of every level with detailed outlines and comprehensive accounts on every conceivable scholarly topic. These works are the product of a fruitful relationship with people and organizations, with thousands of collaborators representing universities and research centers from every country and every corner of the world. In keeping with the needs of contemporary society, the Treccani’s editions are targeting an ever-wider audience, branching out into different formats and channels of communication, from paper to multimedia support both on and offline.

Re-designing and Streamlining
With an array of publications – dictionaries, works of historical-literary scope, and specialized encyclopedias, and thousands of contributors, Treccani needed to rethink the entire publishing process.

“Recently it became clear that we had to re-design our publishing process to optimize hardware, software, and human resources,” explained Massimo Massimi, IT Director at The Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana. “The main target of the new process was twofold: on one hand, to build a single content repository of the whole “Treccani” knowledge and, on the other hand, to design a new product line to be published easily and with a shorter production cycle, built out of knowledge and content already present “in-house.” Last but not least, this new system had to be fully integrated with the existing ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning).” The previous system was largely based on custom developed applications, while QuarkXPress and Microsoft Word were used as content creation tools.

Quark to Reduce Production Cycle and Publishing Costs
The new solution is based on a combination of Quark Dynamic Publishing Solution and an Open Source Content Management System, enabling a single system for viewing, creating, and editing all content including: the General Data base, the “Treccani” Web portal, the e-commerce website, The Intranet and Extranet, the Editorial system and, finally, the ERP itself. Remote access provides contributors (“subject matter experts”) with the ability to create content which automatically becomes part of the General Treccani’s Data Base.

M. Massimi explains: “Dynamic Publishing allows our editorial teams to concentrate only on content creation, whatever the final product will be, without being involved in layout management. Content available in the content management system can be easily re-purposed to create new multimedia publications with a higher quality standard reducing production cycle and publishing costs in a multi-channel approach, for print, online, and offline consumption.”

Currently, only four out of a dozen of Treccani’s editorial teams are using the new dynamic publishing platform. M. Massimi continues, “We expect to launch a number of new publications aimed at different market segments. This will undoubtedly lead to a wider roll out of the solution across Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana with a larger number of (if not all) editorial teams involved in the project.”