Open Society Publishing Forum19 February 1999, Issue 28**************************************************************** OPEN SOCIETY PUBLISHING FORUM OSI Center for Publishing Development Budapest, 19 February 1999, Issue 28 **************************************************************** In this issue *Foundation Publishing First Internet Yugoslav Bookshop Opens Borders for Book Trade Seminar on Copyright and Copyright Handbook in Moldova "Administrative Law in Central and Eastern Europe" – A New Title From CEU Press *Publishing in EC Europe and Central Asia "Government Love Books" Project *Publishing General Diet Coke Goes Intellectual Bertelsmann Goes Online *Website Review The Gutenberg Project: www.gutenberg.net *Translations Published - Update ======================================================= Foundation Publishing ======================================================= FIRST INTERNET YUGOSLAV BOOKSHOP OPENS BORDERS FOR BOOK TRADE www.knjizara.com The first Yugoslav internet bookshop <knjizara.com> was launched in 1997 and at the moment has a database of over 11,000 titles from 200 Yugoslav publishers. The site has 4,000-5,000 hits a day (200-300 visitors). 66% of the visitors were identified by the country from which they reached the bookshop. Among them the highest number were from the US (34%). The others were from Yugoslavia (13%), Croatia (7%), Canada (5%), Sweden (3%), Australia (2%) and Slovenia (2%), other countries made up a further 18%. An interesting fact is that the number of visitors from Croatia has risen about three and half times over the last half a year. Not only it is possible to search and browse the catalogue in order to buy books, but also one is able to read reviews of titles, interviews with authors, have a look at lists of bestsellers, find information about book awards, or check what titles the bookshop recommends. The site maintains a mailing list of 2,500 most enthusiastic visitors. Last year the project received from the Fund for an Open Society - Yugoslavia and the Electronic Publishing Development Program a grant of $13,163 (in 1997 no support was provided). At the moment a proposal requesting further assistance is being considered. The company plans to achieve financial break even in 2001 providing the situation in the country allows it. [based on information from Sreten Ugricic, CPD <sugricic@osi.hu> SEMINAR ON COPYRIGHT AND COPYRIGHT HANDBOOK IN MOLDOVA A seminar on copyright was conducted by Lynette Owen in Chisinau, Moldova on 15-17 February. The audience consisted of representatives of local publishing houses, the State Copyright Agency, faculty of law departments and lawyers. The seminar coincided with the publication of Owen’s handbook "Buying and Selling Rights in Literary Works" in Moldovan. The text is based on Moldovan copyright law and includes all recent changes that have been recently passed by the parliament (versions of the handbook adapted to local copyright law have been published also in Kazakstan, Lithuania, Romania, Russia and Ukraine). One thousand copies were produced with a grant of $4,574 from the Soros Foundation - Moldova; the CPD paid for the development of the text. The books have been distributed among publishers and departments of law (200 copies) as well as libraries (800 copies). All participants of the seminar received copies of the handbook in advance, which contributed to the effectiveness of the seminar work. The participants’ evaluations stressed the importance of the practical know-how they acquired at the seminar but they also valued the knowledge of the Western and international copyright law they gained there. All agreed that there was a need to establish an Independent Legal Copyright Office to increase the number of translations into and from Moldovan. Another effect of the seminar is that publishers participating in the Translation Project should be now able to acquire project-related copyright licenses themselves. The seminar cost $5,885 and it was co-financed by the Soros Foundation - Moldova and CPD. [based on information from Victoria Miron, Soros Foundation - Moldova <vmiron@soros.md>] "ADMINISTRATIVE LAW IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE" – A NEW TITLE FROM CEU PRESS The book, edited by Denis J. Galligan and Daniel M. Smilov, contains contributions by twenty authors, mainly from the region. From the catalogue: "Following the constitutional and political reforms in Central and Eastern Europe of the last decade, the time has now come for the whole-scale reform of public administration-the creation of a professional civil service; a clear sense of the objectives to be achieved by the administration; and the provision of adequate resources to perform the tasks of public administration. In addition, and perhaps most importantly of all, there must be a sound legal basis for public administration. Recognizing this, the book examines administrative law and administrative institutions in Central and Eastern Europe. In a series of case studies, discussing each country in the region in turn, it looks at the ways in which a range of administrative decisions are reached and at how the citizens affected by them are treated." ======================================================= Publishing in EC Europe and Central Asia ======================================================= "GOVERNMENT LOVE BOOKS" PROJECT "Governments love books (electronic books, too)" is an activity carried out jointly by the Council of Europe, UNESCO and the Borsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (German Publishers’ Association). It consists of reviews of national book policies in European countries, especially in Central in Eastern Europe. The reviews make proposals to politicians and policy makers for the implementation of "sound" policies for the book trade and for libraries. These studies are carried out by invited consultants in collaboration with local professionals and policy makers. Their involvement means that the findings are automatically endorsed at the highest level, which significantly increases the influence the reviews have. The project began with reviews in Romania and Bulgaria in 1998. The Soros Center for the Arts in Sofia published jointly with the National Book Center of the Ministry of Culture 1,000 copies of a Bulgarian translation of the report. This year the countries to be reviewed are Albania and Lithuania. The person coordinating the project at the Council of Europe is Giuseppe Vitiello <giuseppe.vitiello@coe.fr>. As the Council of Europe’s website is being reconstructed at the moment, the texts of the Romanian and the Bulgarian reviews can be requested from Forum. [JC with information from Yana Genova, Soros Center for the Arts <ygenova@sca.osf.acad.bg>] ======================================================= Publishing General ======================================================= DIET COKE GOES INTELLECTUAL After we had the plastic toys in the cereal box it is time be a grown-up. This month Diet Coke launched a novel campaign. During the following three months the company will throw onto the US market about 50 million specially marked 12-, and 24- packs of Diet Coke containing an excerpt (up to 32 pages) of a book from well-known authors appealing to Diet Coke drinkers. Names include Nora Roberts, Barbara Taylor Bedford and Elmore Leonard. The idea of the campaign comes from a research which showed that the number one leisure activity of an average Diet Coke drinker is reading. All involved in this unusual campaign, including the authors, the publishers, the wholesalers and the booksellers, are excited about the results of the promotion as no-one can yet tell how successful it is going to be. Everyone hopes people will not just collect all the six booklets but they will also buy the book themselves. Which is after all the real thing. [based on "Publishers Weekly" February 1, 1999, Monika Horvath, CPD <mhorvath@osi.hu>] BERTELSMANN GOES ONLINE One of the biggest world media and publishing corporations is launching its internet shops. The German <www.bol.de> and French <www.bol.fr> online bookshops were opened in February, a UK one <www.bol.uk> will follow in March, a branch in the Netherlands in April and a Spanish branch in the autumn. An Italian online bookshop is still under consideration. [JC, based on "Bookseller" 12 February 1999] ======================================================= Website Review ======================================================= THE GUTENBERG PROJECT www.gutenberg.net (original URL http://promo.net/pg/) The goal of the Gutenberg Project is to provide Public Domain Etext (electronic text) editions of books a short time after they fall out of copyright protection. It plans to have given away one trillion Etext files by the 31 December 2001 (10,000 x 100,000,000=trillion). The project began in 1971 when Michael Hart, now the director of the project, was given $100m worth computer operator time by the company that was employing him with the hope that he and his colleagues would develop their skills in this extra time. He decided then that the greatest value of computers would be not in computing but in the storage, retrieval and searching of information. Books were chosen as the target means of information and digitising texts started soon after with the US Declaration of Independence as the first. The project aims at providing the texts at a cost as low as possible and in a format allowing for as wide as possible dissemination (at the moment the standard used is "Plain Vanilla ASCII" which, as the project site claims, can be used by 99% of computers in the world.) There are three kinds of titles in the Gutenberg Library: -light literature such as "Alice in Wonderland", "Peter Pan", "Aesop’s Fables" -heavy literature such as the Bible or other religious documents -references such as Roget’s Thesuarus, dictionaries, an encyclopaedia, etc. At the moment the library contains almost 2,000 titles, some in the original language (six including Latin) and some in translation, available through a number of ftp servers on four continents. The work is carried out by volunteers which join up the project through internet. They receive a set of standards for their work. The project finances its activities through donations and the use of the library is free of charge. [JC] ======================================================= Translations Published - Update ======================================================= New titles published within the CEU Translation Project: RUSSIA 1. Eco, Umberto: La Struttura Assente, $5,700, $187/author’s sheet 2. Klemperer, W.: Tagebuch 1933-1945, $2,805, $187/author’s sheet 3. Maslow A.: The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, $4,956, $187/author’s sheet ======================================================= Open Society Publishing Forum is a publication of the OSI Center for Publishing Development. Archive of back issues: <www.osi.hu/cpd/spf> Contact person: Jerzy Celichowski <celichow@osi.hu> Requests for adding to and dropping from the mailing list: Monika Horvath <mhorvath@osi.hu> You can also contact us at: Center for Publishing Development Open Society Institute 1525 Budapest 114. sz. posta PO Box 10/22 Hungary e-mail <cpd@osi.hu> tel (36 1) 327 3014 fax (36 1) 327 3042 =======================================================
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