About

About

Who we are

A Development Lab

EDRLab is an international, non-profit development laboratory, working on the deployment of an open, interoperable and accessible digital publishing ecosystem, worldwide.

EDRLab develops technology to accelerate the adoption of digital reading in different forms: text, audio and image. It is one of the main contributors of the open-source Readium toolkits , the creator of the free Thorium Reader desktop reading application and the manager of the LCP DRM.

It is also an active member of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), actively participating to Publishing@W3C activities, i.e. the evolution of the EPUB 3 format and the creation of the publishing standards for the Open Web Platform.

EDRLab also dedicates expert resources to the development of an open standard aiming at facilitating Text and Data Mining (TDM) in Europe and elsewhere.

Our team

Our team is currently composed of:

Laurent Le Meur (CTO)
Daniel Weck (Lead developer)
Gautier Chomel (Project manager and accessibility expert)
Pierre Leroux (Backend developer)
Arthur Le Meur (Junior Web developer)
Priyanka Dalotra (LCP Product Manager)
Marie-Laurence de Rocher (Communication & Partnerships)

An Association

Founding members of EDRLab are: Editis, Hachette, Madrigall, Media Participations, Syndicat National de l’édition, Cercle de la Librarie, Centre National du livre, the French State and Cap Digital.

The association is expanding fast and has reached 84 members in 2024 (see Our members). Among them, companies specialized in authoring tools, content processing, e-readers, digital distribution …

The bylaws of the association are available in French and English.

Since 2024, EDRLab is located inside the Philanthro-Lab building in Paris. The Philanthro-Lab is the first physical site entirely dedicated to philanthropy, and is a unique place for meetings and exchanges.

What we do

Our team and the community of our members work together to:

Develop open-source software for the publishing community: Thorium Reader, Readium tookits;
Develop and manage the non-proprietary Readium LCP DRM;
Develop open-source software allowing library patrons to access audiobook collections via a simple smart speaker;
Work actively on the evolution of the EPUB 3 standard as member of the W3, promote its adoption across Europe, help publishers on the path to the creation of natively accessible EPUB 3 publications;
Work actively on open-standards optimized for Audiobooks: W3 Audiobooks, LPF, Readium Audiobooks.
Work actively of an open-standard optimized for digital visual narratives: Divina.

Who funds EDRLab

EDRLab mainly gets its budget from membership fees and public or private grants. Such income support the mission of the association to develop commercial-grade open source software that advances an open interoperable ecosystem for the creation and distribution of digital content in order to foster innovation, accessibility, and a global sharing of knowledge.

Founding members and French ex-officio members are currently providing a large part of the funding. Their logo is provided at the bottom of this page.

Board of Directors

Here is the composition of our current (March 2023) board of Directors:

- Virginie Clayssen (Editis), founding member
- Alban Cerisier (Madrigall), founding member
- Arnaud Robert (Hachette Livre), founding member
- Pauline Mouroux (Média-Participations), founding member
- Michel Lanneau (Cercle de la Librairie), founding member
- Dienaba Dia (French State, ministère de la Culture), ex-officio member
- Gaëlle Philippe (CNL), ex-officio member
- Hadrien Gardeur (De Marque), elected 28 June 2022
- Rémi Bauzac (Vivlio), elected 28 June 2022
- Marion Berthaut (Mobidys), elected 28 June 2022
- Luisa Gaggini (Casalini Libri), elected 23 June 2022
- Cristina Mussinelli (Fondazione LIA), elected 23 June 2023
Elected board members have a two years mandate.