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**************************************************************** Open Society Information
Programs Forum Budapest, 10 February 2000,
Issue 47 **************************************************************** In this issue: Projects and Initiatives of the OSI/Soros Foundations Network -Buybook: a Bookshop in Sarajevo -Tajik Publishers Study Hungarian Textbook Provision Announcements -Second Balaton Summit: East - West Collaboration in the Development of Interactive Media Publishing in EC Europe and Central Asia -A New Publishers Association for the New Kosova Electronic Publishing -Software to Protect Intellectual Property on the Internet Translations Published - Update Supplement -Learning From Failures: Cardinal 2000 Project (Frances Pinter) ======================================================= Projects and Initiatives of the OSI/Soros Foundations Network ======================================================= BUYBOOK: A BOOKSHOP IN SARAJEVO In December 1996 two writers (Goran Samardzic and Damir Uzunovic) opened a bookshop in Sarajevo, which they named Buybook (in Bosniak slang the homonym of this word means ‘prison’). Open Society Fund Bosnia and Herzegovina (OSF) supported them with a grant. Already the first year was a successful one, with customers being attracted not from only Sarajevo, but also all over from Bosnia, Croatia and Yugoslavia. The vision behind Buybook was to establish an open bookstore, unique in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which would offer books from all parts of the former Yugoslavia as well as literature from other parts of Europe. At the same time, the bookshop would become a cultural center, which would organize promotions, poetry readings and art exhibits. With some help from the Open Society Fund, Buybook has now more space for books and a location in the center of the city, two main preconditions for the bookshop’s success. A rental contract with the municipality was signed for five years, and the rent for the first year was paid with a grant from OSF. Buybook is providing customers an opportunity to order books, for which they also use the internet. A Buybook website is in the process of establishment. From January 1st 2000, Buybook has been the distributor for the Longman ELT Program for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Books from other British publishers (Penguin, Transworld, Taschen, Phaidon, Yale, Oxford, Macmillan, Dorling Kindersley, I. B. Tauris, Blackwell Science) are also stocked. The management of the bookshop is thinking about the new political situation in the Balkans in terms of the Stability Pact. They are establishing contacts with publishers, booksellers, writers and journalists in the countries of former Yugoslavia. Split (Croatia) and Podgorica (Montenegro) are likely locations of new branches operating on the same principle. Buybook is also working on establishing its own outlets all over Bosnia and Herzegovina (Mostar, Tuzla, Banja Luka). The Bookshop is now self-sustainable, and it does not receive grants anymore. The annual turnover is over $180,000. It has a staff of eight. On the whole Buybook has received $55,000 of support from OSF over three years.[based on information from Damir Uzunovic, the manager of Buybook <buybook@pksa.com.ba>] TAJIK PUBLISHERS STUDY HUNGARIAN TEXTBOOK PROVISION This January OSI Tajikistan and CPD jointly organized
a study tour of the Hungarian textbook market for a group from Tajikistan
including representatives of the Ministries of Education and Culture as
well as publishers. The group visited Hungary to get acquainted with the
Hungarian model of textbook publishing, printing, evaluation and distribution
with the aim of reforming the system in Tajikistan. During the five day
long tour they visited the Ministry of Education, some publishers - in
Budapest and the countryside - printers, bookshops and schools. They also
met representatives of the Publishers Association and the Association
of Textbook Publishers. Based on the depth of the interest of the participants
in the presented issues it can be said that the tour was a success. One
of the reasons behind it was the connection the tour had to the Educational
Reform in Tajikistan financed by the World Bank: the participants were
aware that in this time of change new ideas are in demand and have a chance
of being introduced. Data from Uzbekistan, for the first time, has been added to the Publishing Survey 1999. Forum welcomes Biljana Maslovaric, who is the new coordinator of Publishing Program at the Open Society Institute - Montenegro. Her e-mail address is <bmaslovaric@osi.cg.yu>. Lindita Tahiri of Kosova Foundation for Open Society has an e-mail address. It is <ltahiri@hotmail.com> ======================================================= Announcements ======================================================= SECOND BALATON SUMMIT: EAST-WEST COLLABORATION IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERACTIVE MEDIA Following a successful first summit in 1999, the
Electronic Publishing Development Program (EPDP) of the Open Society Institute,
in partnership with European Commission’s Information Society Directorate-General
(formerly Directorate-General XIII or DG XIII) are pleased to announce
its second conference entitled 'East-West Collaboration in the Development
of Interactive Media'. The conference will take place at Lake Balaton,
Hungary on 7-9 May 2000. Delegates will be able to meet and interact with
potential business/development partners from across Europe. Conference
themes include education, libraries and culture as well as business to
business services covering content and services, technologies and software.
The working language will be English. CLOSING DATE FOR APPLICATIONS: 7 APRIL 2000 The sponsors of the event are Information Society Directorate-General and EPDP. ======================================================= Publishing in EC Europe and Central Asia ======================================================= A NEW PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION FOR THE NEW KOSOVA The Association of Kosova Publishers (AKP) has been established in the new millennium on 17 January 2000. The initiative came from three private publishers: "Buzuku" (from Prishtina), "Dukagjini" (from Peja) and "Faik Konica" (from Prishtina), who represent the most entrepreneurial part of the Kosova publishing industry. The president is Nazmi Rrahmani, whose number (381 38 28 534) is the contact number of the association. AKP has the status of a non-profit association. At the moment it is in the process of formal registration with the United Nations Mission in Kosova (UNMIK). It is open to members of all nationalities of Kosova. Among its goals are strengthening of publishing activities in Kosova, development of book distribution in Kosova and outside it, promoting of translations from and into Albanian, organization of a book fair in Kosova and participation in international book fairs abroad, organization of training seminars for authors and publishers, protection of copyright, and so on. As AKP does not have its office yet – most of publishers’ property was destroyed during the war– the formerly state-owned textbook publisher "Libri Shkollor" kindly offered the association some space and the use of a telephone. [based on information from Lindita Tahiri, Kosova Foundation for Open Society <ltahiri@hotmail.com>] ======================================================= Electronic Publishing ======================================================= SOFTWARE TO PROTECT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ON THE INTERNET California software startup Vyou.com recently released software that protects Web sites' content. The software prevents intellectual property such as text, images, and source code from being printed, saved, or co-opted without the Web site's permission. The website's main page is protected by a pop-up window that allows users to view the page; objects on the page, such as images and sidebars, are protected separately if the Web publisher so desires. Vyou.com CEO Peter Levy says the company is a "do-gooder of the Web" that aims to improve the quality of online intellectual property. One of the benefits of Vyou.com's software is that it does not display Web content as a separate, special file, and thus does not alienate Web site visitors, says one professional photographer who uses the software. Two other companies, ICopyright and Intertrust Technologies, also offer software that helps protect proprietary content on the Web. [Wall Street Journal, 7 Feb 2000] ======================================================= Translations Published - Update ======================================================= New titles published within the CEU Translation Project: BULGARIA 1. Habermas, Jurgen: Moral, Law and Democracy (Selected Essays, ed. Stilian Iotov), $2,500 2. Turner, Victor Witter: The Ritual Process: Structure and anti-structure, $922, $89/author’s sheet CZECH REPUBLIC 1. Elshtain, Jean Bethke: Public Man, Private Woman: Women in Social and Political Thought, $1,786, $85/author’s sheet 2. Foucault, Michel: Histoire de la sexualite, $3,437, $86/author’s sheet MOLDOVA Giersch; Pague; Schmiedling: The Fading Miracle: Four decades of market economy in Germany, $3,871, $198/author’s sheet POLAND 1. Delanty, Gerard: Inventing Europe, $3,714 2. Hansen, Mogens Herman: The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes, $3,250 EAST TRANSLATES EAST POLAND Andruchovych, Yuri: Moscoviada, $2,150 (from Ukrainian) UKRAINE Gombrowicz, Witold: Diary, 3 vol, $16,216 (from Polish) ======================================================= Supplement ======================================================= LEARNING FROM FAILURES: CARDINAL 2000 PROJECT Looking back over the five years I worked on publishing development with the CPD team and the national foundation coordinators, I can take great pleasure in our successes, but thought it might be useful to share lessons learnt from our failures too. Since many countries are interested in improving book distribution I thought it might be helpful to share with you an experience of how NOT to do it and why. As many of you have heard me say, good distribution can only occur when there is good (complete and up to date) information about what books are available. This is why CPD has been encouraging 'Books in Print' projects. It is a low cost, low risk way of making a very important contribution. CPD has discouraged large investments in distribution companies for a number of reasons. A brief summary of our failed project in Romania will illustrate some of the obstacles. A few years ago Marina Ghitoc, the very committed publishing coordinator in Romania, came up with the idea of supporting a new company that would be a national distributor of educational and intellectual books. A printer and a publisher were keen to start this company and the foundation engaged a consultant to prepare a business plan. The strategy was to establish a company, with the printer and publisher investing some money, the foundation providing a grant and the rest of the necessary funds to be obtained through a bank loan. This was all designed before the OSI Economic Development Program was up and running. So we were pioneering, without much experience throughout the network to draw on. Had the project been successful, it would have been one of the first to be a mixture of grant and loan. The foundation was successful in convincing a local bank to provide the loan. So what went wrong? The main problem, which we can now see with the benefit of perfect hindsight, was that the publishing/bookselling community did not endorse the project. This was despite the fact that all would have benefited from improved sales. Why was there opposition to a plan that was well designed? The answer lies in the question of control. The publishing community was convinced that the founders would benefit more than they would and so they were not prepared to support the project. We went ahead in the belief that once up and running publishers would support the new venture. However, this was not to be. Obstacles were thrown up everywhere. Publishers were unwilling to sell to the distributor on realistic terms. Plans to buy up state bookshops were thwarted. The initial start up was unable to attract well-qualified staff and as the targets were missed month after month the staff became disillusioned. Eventually the project was wound up. What I learnt from that experience was that for such complex projects there really has to be a strong commitment from all concerned. And getting agreement from everyone is very, very hard to do. I also realized that when interfacing with commerce we had to be careful not to take sides and appear to be giving one commercial body a possible advantage over another. Another lesson was to keep the objectives simple and straightforward so that the mission can be explained in one or two sentences. If you have a failed project with lessons that would benefit us all, why not write a few lines for the Forum? [Frances Pinter, member of OSI Information Sub-Board <frances@pinter.org.uk>] ======================================================= Open Society Information Programs Forum is published by the OSI Center for Publishing Development in collaboration with the OSI Network Library Program. Archive of back issues: <www.osi.hu/cpd/forum.html> Contact person: Jerzy Celichowski <celichow@osi.hu> Requests to be added to and removed from the mailing list: Monika Horvath <mhorvath@osi.hu> You can also contact us at: e-mail <cpd@osi.hu> ======================================================= |