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As in other countries with a small population and market, it is very difficult for Latvian authors to be published. Contemporary Latvian literature includes a wide spectrum of themes and a new phenomenon has been noticed, i. e. the rise of regional literature. The number of Latvian fiction titles published over the last six years is quite stable, reaching ca. 220—240 titles a year. Fortunately, since 1993 the number of first editions is higher than the number of reprints. First editions represent an average of 60 % of the output. Print runs of contemporary Latvian literature are relatively high at 3,000 copies. An average print run of first editions of Latvian authors in 1999 was 2,800 copies. Payment, which authors can get from publishers, is available either in the form of a lump sum or as a royalty arrangement, usually without any advance. There are certain tax incentives for authors. 15 % of their income is deducted from tax, and they can claim certain costs against their earnings. However, authors quite often do not take advantage of the cost deduction, complaining that the system is too complicated and bureaucratic.
Generally, Latvian original literature dominates the market with ca. 70 % of the titles published each year. Only foreign fiction reaches more than 50 % of all fiction titles. Professional translators (mostly elderly people) have a university-level language education. Quite often they translate from two, three or more languages and the majority of them translate from Russian, although nowadays publications of English and German literature take ca. 65 % of all translated works.
A new Law on Copyright was passed in the Saeima in April 2000 in order to adopt EU directives. All controversial and critical issues have been resolved in the new act such as duration of copyright (70 years), neighbouring rights or reproduction rights. Copyright protection regarding printed matters seems to work quite normally. Most publishers respect copyright rules. In 1995, Latvia joined the Berne Convention for the second time after regaining its independence. Internationally Latvia is represented by a collecting society Copyright and Communication Consultations Agency / Latvian Copyright Agency (AKKA/LAA). This society protects the intellectual property of more than 1,400 Latvian authors as well as authors and writers of the entire Berne Convention member states.
The piracy industry is quite well established in Latvia. Main fields of piracy are software and entertainment. Fortunately, the market is relatively small, so unlike in Ukraine (considered to be the fastest growing piracy zone in Europe) foreign copyright holders are not alerted. It is a severe headache for domestic producers and owners of intellectual property. It is estimated that ca. 90 % of all software in Latvia is illegal. Therefore, at present, electronic (off- and on-line) publishing is in an immature phase of development. In the book sector, unauthorised photocopying in state offices, schools and libraries is the most prolific, especially of educational textbooks and exercise books. It is particularly widespread in schools as pupils and students cannot afford to buy the very expensive textbooks. An informal survey carried out by the National Library staff shows that in schools cheap copies of textbooks are being produced, and in one case a single officially published copy is being used to reproduce ca. 2,000 unauthorised copies.
There is an extensive network of libraries in
Latvia. In 1998 more than 2000 libraries were operational:
The governmental budget allocated for education in recent years was 6.5 % of the GDP. In 1998 it was 246.5 million LVL or 15.7 % of the total budget spending. Part of spending on education goes to school and university libraries, but it is far too little to satisfy the basic needs of these libraries. The financing of school libraries seems to be the lowest of all. For instance, the Central Library of the University of Latvia received 60,000 LVL for the purchase of books in 1999. The library director estimated that the budget for purchasing new books should be 8 LVL per student per year, whereas over the last three years 2.58 LVL per student per year were received. Bearing in mind the number of students—30,000 in 1999—this gives the amount of 240,000 LVL per year to fulfil basic duties. The situation is even worse in less prestigious state universities with 0.5—1.00 LVL per student per year for book purchasing. The Latvian authorities have set up an ambitious plan to graduate more and more students every year. Nevertheless, students are not offered enough support and library services are insufficient. The library service in Latvia is generally free of charge. The only exception is the Academic Library of Latvia with its paid services:
The National Library, as elsewhere, is a multi-functional organisation with the role to collect, store and disseminate Latvian national cultural heritage. The legal status of the National Library is defined by the Law on the National Library of Latvia passed in 1992, similar to the act (with slight amendments) accepted by the Saeima (the Latvian parliament) in 1922. Two other acts specify the significant position of the National Library: – Law on the Supply of Free Mandatory Copies
of Printed and Other Publications passed in 1997 (see Section on Deposit
Copies below) The National Library is funded and controlled by the Ministry of Culture. The Minister allocates the annual budget for the Library and appoints its director. In 1999 the annual budget granted by the government was roughly 1 million LVL. 50 % of this was spent on administration and staff salaries, 16 % on collection development. Every year the board of the Library submits applications for additional funds from both governmental and public sources in order to improve the computer system and to set up a library network in Latvia. Over the last three years, it has received 840,000 LVL (including financial support from the Soros Foundation Latvia) from these sources and 1 million USD from the American A. Mellon Foundation. Thanks to the above support electronic cataloguing has already been completed, and a mainframe system with the server shared by seven other libraries has been installed. Readers have on-line access to the National Bibliography (see below) of 500,000 Latvian publications and to a database of so-called Lettica (world wide publications on any Latvian subject). The majority of readers and/or researchers, who visit the Library, come from the faculties of human and social sciences of Latvian universities and academies. Therefore, the board of the Library forms the Advisory Committee of Professionals, which helps the library staff in the book and periodicals acquisition process. The main problem the National Library is facing now is the lack of a suitable building. The Library is currently located in five separated buildings.
One of the tasks of the National Library is to regularly prepare the National Bibliography. Two departments are involved in and responsible for the National Bibliography, i.e. the ISBN Agency (one-person office) and the Department of Press Statistics. The ISBN Agency was launched in January 1993, the ISSN Agency started two years later. Publishers pay a symbolic fee of 5 LVL in order to get a publisher prefix and a set of ISBN numbers for their publications. Approximately 80% of Latvian publishers are registered at the ISBN Agency. So far 737 publishers have registered in the ISBN database, but only around 400 of them are really active. A year ago (March 25, 1999) the Saeima passed an amendment to the Law on the Supply of Free Mandatory Copies of Printed and Other Publications: (Paragraph 1, point 7): At least theoretically, this clause should increase the number of publishers formally registered at the ISBN Agency.
There are some 3800 staff in the libraries in Latvia. Every fourth librarian has higher university education and every eighth librarian has a specialised university degree. Nowadays the demand for better educated and higher qualified personnel is gradually increasing. The previous education system has in part survived. Degrees in librarianship are granted by a specialised department (the Department of Library and Information Research) at the University of Latvia. Basic and semi-higher professional education can be acquired at the Latvian School of Culture. In 1998, as the joint initiative of the University of Latvia, the National Library of Latvia, the Soros Foundation, Latvia, the Mellon Foundation and others, the Continuing Education Centre for Libraries was established.
Legal deposit copies are subject to the Law on the Supply of Free Mandatory Copies of Printed and Other Publications passed in 1997. As a kind of forced compromise between librarians and publishers, fourteen copies are required as deposit samples of all printed matter at the National Library, as deposit copies are the main source of data for the National Bibliography and the ISBN Agency. Therefore, the National Library requires no more than four copies of each publication, and the remaining copies are distributed among other key libraries. As far as non-printed matter is concerned, the number of deposit copies is three (audio-visual materials and CD-ROMs), collected at the National Library only. The National Library receives approximately 80 % of publications published in Latvia.
There is no legislation relating specifically to books in Latvia. Laws relating to libraries is discussed thoroughly under the Section The National Library below. Latvia has recently joined a group of accession countries, which precisely defines the scope of the legislative change in all of these countries. The Latvian State seems to concentrate on one priority only, e.g. how to harmonise the Latvian legislation according to the directives within a reasonably short period of time.
There are two specific acts related to libraries
in Latvia:
Although the State demonstrates consistent efforts to harmonise the Latvian legislation with the European Union system, the Florence Agreement has not been ratified yet. Surprisingly, the Ministry of Finance does not support the ratification process at all. The Florence Agreement states that no cultural product should be subject to any taxation, and that VAT is the only exception. Latvia’s neighbours have already ratified the Agreement. It puts Latvian exporters of cultural goods, especially printers, in an awkward position compared to their competitors from the region.
The VAT system was introduced in Latvia in April of 1995. Certain types of publications are exempt, these are works for children, school text-books and scientific, technical and medical books, and first editions of original works printed in Latvia. VAT exemption is not the equivalent of a zero VAT rate. The normal VAT rate for goods and services is 18 per cent. This rate is applied obviously for all raw materials in the printing industry and successive services. Finally VAT exemption is the least favourable fiscal solution, since it makes these goods and services very costly for publishers and printing companies in the first place. Strange enough, VAT for books has been consulted with the relevant trade associations, which shows that many within the book trade do not understand the true implication of VAT. As an example, in the brochure released by the Latvian Publishers’ Association in 1998 one can find out that certain types of publications are VAT zero rated goods! The mixed VAT rates in the book industry can create additional costs for traders as they have to maintain a sophisticated bookkeeping system.
The World Bank, as elsewhere, offers a wide range of assistance to the Latvian government divided into two categories: lending and non-lending services. As far as the latter is concerned, bank experts have been making regular reviews of the economic reports; they also released (October 1998) an empirical survey on corruption in Albania, Georgia and Latvia. There is a new project for the assessment of poverty. Among lending services the Education Improvement Project is of particular interest. It means a proposed loan of the equivalent of 31.1 million USD to the state of Latvia through the Ministry of Education and Science. At least two components of the loan are related to educational publishing, i.e. the development of basic education performance and content standards in language and social studies for grades 3, 6 and 9 (1.0 million USD) as well as the development and implementation of a national student assessment system for Latvian language for native and non-native Latvian speakers in grade 9 (1.3 million USD). Another project, which can theoretically attract publishers, is the Rural Development Project, a two-phase loan of 25 million USD. The project is focused on how to reduce poverty and unemployment in rural areas by promoting economic development and alternative income generating opportunities. New educational materials will have to be developed for retraining programs. The World Bank activity is hardly known by Latvian publishers, and the Ministry of Education and Science does not convey it to the Publishers’ Association at all. Awareness of the activities of the World Bank should be spread among members of the Publishers’ Association.
One of the most significant changes in Latvia’s finance arena has been a sharp increase in competition among banks. This began in 1999 and is expected to continue over the next years. Unlike some years ago, when banks were working directly with non-resident businesses, mainly from Russia, recently banks increasingly started to target the domestic market. The Latvian economy is just recovering from the Russian crisis and macroeconomic indicators are also positive, which means that there is a basis for banks to activate credit schemes. The leading banks in Latvia—Unibanka, Hansabanka and Parex Bank—widely offer lending services both to individuals and companies. Banks obviously prefer to co-operate with medium-sized and large companies. Since most publishers, wholesalers and booksellers run relatively small businesses, loans are, in practice, only available to larger companies with a proven business record. The current standard terms are as follows: a credit line from 80,000 USD to 250,000 USD for 3 years (on average) with an interest of LIBOR plus 5—8 % a year in dollar or euro equivalent. Although banks are usually reluctant to take stock as security, it is relatively easy to get a loan, if the management and/or owners of a publishing company demonstrate strong personal involvement. Unfortunately, no “micro-loan scheme” (loans up to 25,000 USD for very small businesses not having any fix assets) has been developed yet. This system would help small publishers and booksellers, especially in the start-up phase. Recently banks also started to offer a factoring service, and it is a very fast-growing business in Latvia. Knowing how problematic and slow payment through the printer—publisher—bookseller chain is, an efficient factoring system should significantly improve the Latvian book trade.
Since 1999 cash transactions are forbidden, so most deals go through the banking system (credit/debit cards, wire transfer). All retailers are obliged to use cash registers, and it appears that all financial transactions are tightly controlled. In addition, all wages to employees have to be paid through the banking system, and in practice all legally employed staff have debit and/or credit cards, which places Latvia among the regional leaders with regard to the number of cards issued per capita.
The Latvian Publishers’ Association (LPA) was founded in March 1993 under the Public Organisation Act by 23 publishers in order to maintain and protect publishers’ right to freely publish and disseminate printed matter, considering the legislation of Latvia and international copyright. The Association represents publishers and protects their interests in their relations with the society, with legislature and with state institutions, political parties, social organisations and unions, with the paper industry and with printing houses, booksellers, libraries, etc. (taken from the Charter of the Latvian Publishers Association). The members of the association are changing in number, and in 2000 the LPA has 48 active members—the most significant Latvian publishers. The president and the board (7 individuals) are elected by the members of the LPA for a three-year term. Membership fees, representing the only income for the association, vary from approximately 300 to 900 Euro per annum, depending on the number of book titles published over one year by a member. As in the case of other trade associations in the region, this income does not allow to employing enough professional executives. LPA hires one executive director, who is responsible for all administration issues. LPA supports the monthly trade magazine “Book Review”, which is struggling for survival and is quite likely to be closed down in a month or two from now. Among other services offered by the association is the promotion of Latvian publishers at the Frankfurt Book Fair (national stand) and during the National Book Fair in Riga (co-organized by LPA since 1998).
The Latvian Booksellers’ Association was founded one year later than LPA. In the beginning it grouped 30 members. Nowadays, the number of the Association’s members is decreasing, which also reflects the crisis in Latvian bookselling. Currently the Association consists of 25 members.
The Printers’ Association is a relatively young
organisation. It was established in 1997 with 48 members representing
ca. 70 % of the Latvian printing capacity. Basic tasks presented by
the Association are as follows:
The Union was founded in 1940 as one of national organisations of the USSR Writers’ Union. In 1990, the Writers’ Union of Latvia became a fully independent organisation. The Union is a professional creative body, which has attracted over 280 members: poets, prose writers, playwrights, literary critics, fiction translators and children’s literature writers. The main objective of the Union is to promote creative writing in Latvia through arranging conferences, seminars, public readings, etc. Furthermore, the Union defends writers’ social rights, encourages the promotion and export of Latvian literature and influences the cultural policy of the state.
There is no separate Union of Translators in Latvia. Translators can become members of the Writers’ Union within an autonomous section, the Translators’ Division of the Writers’ Union of Latvia. Nowadays, the Division unites over 40 professional translators representing 23 languages. At the Division’s monthly meetings members discuss and analyse the quality of already published translations, discuss different subjects regarding translation theory and practice as well as current problems of the Latvian language. Members of the Division also have the opportunity to participate in the internship program at the Translators’ Centres in Europe such as Norwich or Visby.
The Library Association of Latvia was founded in March 1923. As the result of political changes in 1940 it was closed down by the Soviets. The Association resumed its activity in 1998 with the main objective of protecting librarians’ interests. Members of the Association play an active role in working out and implementing the library laws in Latvia. They widely co-operate with library communities and associations in other countries.
This report was commissioned by the Council of
Europe within the “Governments love Books (electronic books too)” project
which is a joint activity of the Council of Europe, UNESCO and Börsenverein
des Deutschen Buchhandels. The Consultant would like express his thanks
to all those people who gave up their time to courteously help in the
preparation of the report. Their information and advice has been very
gratefully received. The presentation of this report and the ideas and
opinions included herewith are those of the author who takes full responsibility
for them.
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