Holy Trinity Publications: Technology-Driven Book Production for Russian Orthodox Monastery
Keywords: books, production, copyediting, composition, XML, DocBook, InDesign
Background
Holy Trinity Publications is the publishing division of Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, New York. Founded in 1930, the monastery began both printing and publishing books in 1947, operating its own print shop within the monastery. More than 500 works have been published in both Russian and English. The monastery played an important role in providing spiritual literature during the years of communist rule in Russia.
Holy Trinity Publications recognized that modern publishing workflows would bring its book content into the future, making the heritage of Orthodox Russia accessible to all today. Partnering with KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. to manage the editorial and production process for a number of its titles was necessary for Holy Trinity to standardize production workflows and implement contemporary publishing technologies.
Solution
KGL provides full-service project management for Holy Trinity. Implementing a US-based editorial and production model, subject matter experts provide professional copyediting, proofreading, and indexing services. Holy Trinity’s publishing workflow was analyzed and subsequently transformed with InDesign composition and XML that is produced in India. With KGL’s production support, Holy Trinity staff now have the freedom to enhance its publication program by focussing on new content acquisition, marketing, and semantic enrichment.
Result
Technology-driven production translates to quality content optimized for today’s multi-channel world. The expertise of KGL’s editorial staff provide consistency in style, language, and grammar. Ensuring that all titles conform to the Chicago Manual of Style, results in a cohesive style across the entire publishing program. Transitioning to InDesign composition enables automated transformation to DocBook XML, which provides Holy Trinity with an archive of content that is searchable and reusable in new products and multiple outputs (e.g., ebooks and web).
“Partnering with KGL allows us to focus on our core mission of publishing spiritual literature while KGL ensures content consistency and structured content architecture within a contemporary publishing workflow.”