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**************************************************************** Open Society Information
Programs Forum Budapest, 8 March 2000, Issue
49 **************************************************************** Projects and Initiatives of the OSI/Soros Foundations Network -First 'Books in Print' Catalogue in Kazakstan Announcement -Women’s Issues Translation Publishing Grants 2000 Publishing in EC Europe and Central Asia -Internet Piracy in Yugoslavia -New Grants from Central East European Book ProjectPublishing General Website Review -Electronic Journal Provider: <www.ingenta.com>Translations Published - Update Supplement -‘East Translates East’ Project Strategy of Batory Foundation ======================================================= Projects and Initiatives of the OSI/Soros Foundations Network ======================================================= FIRST ‘BOOKS IN PRINT’ CATALOGUE IN KAZAKSTAN Last year Raritet Publishers issued the first Kazakstani Books in Print catalogue entitled 'Knigi Kazakstana' (The Books of Kazakstan). The catalogue contains 304 titles from 10 publishers and was published in 1,000 copies. They were distributed free of charge to the members of the Association of Publishers and Booksellers in Kazakstan as well as to other interested publishers. Some copies were given away at the Frankfurt and Astana book fairs, and some were sent to local libraries. The Association, which was the driving force behind the catalogue, is at the moment considering publishing its electronic version. The project was financed with a grant from Soros Foundation - Kazakstan. The foundation provided the Association with $15,000 for organising a seminar on the role of trade associations in the establishment of free book market in Kazakstan ($10,000, see also Forum 38) and for the creation of Books in Print, which cost $5,000. [based on information from Shynar Imangalieva, Soros Foundation - Kazakstan <siman@soros.kz>] ======================================================= Announcement ======================================================= WOMEN’S ISSUES TRANSLATION PUBLISHING GRANTS 2000 The Open Society Institute Network Women's Program and the Center for Publishing Development are pleased to announce a competition for publishers to support the translation and publication of books on women’s issues. Following the success of the competitions in 1998 (Women/Gender Translation Project) and 1999 (‘Women at Risk’ Translation Project), when 35 publishers from 19 countries received support for the publication of 46 titles, the project continues in the year 2000 to facilitate local-language access to international literature in areas such as Violence against Women, Women’s Health, Women in Conflict, Minority Women’s Issues and Gender in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Application deadline: 31 July 2000 More information, application form and list of recommended titles can be found at <www.osi.hu/cpd/women2000.htm> ======================================================= Publishing in EC Europe and Central Asia ======================================================= In February this year a group of hackers broke into the server of knjizara.com, the first and the most advanced virtual bookstore in Yugoslavia, and stole the bookstore’s database of titles in order to use the data at their newly-established internet enterprise named YuAmazon.com. A quick intervention by the police quickly ended the piracy. In addition to taking its name from Amazon.com, a leading internet bookseller and retailer, YuAmazon.com copied also their visual design, logo and layout, so visitors would get the impression that they have dropped into an authentic Amazon's local affiliate, like Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.de. The case was reported to the department of business crime of the Yugoslav Police. A short investigation showed that the group behind the scheme consisted of three Yugoslav hackers aged 25-35 led by a German citizen. Mr.Sasa Drakulic, the owner of knjizara.com, learned from a conversation with the thieves that their idea was to establish a commercial website the easiest and quickest way. This meant little concern about either Yugoslav or foreign copyright holders. The hackers justified their activity by saying "On the Internet everything is permitted." They explained the whole operation as just a little bit more complicated Copy/Paste procedure. In the end Mr Drakulic seems to have taken the incident as a kind of indirect compliment, a sign that his enterprise is treated as valuable and compared with globally-known company such as Amazon.com. [based on information from Sreten Ugricic, Fund for an Open Society – Yugoslavia <sugricic@sfj.opennet.org>] NEW GRANTS OF CENTRAL EAST EUROPEAN BOOK PROJECT In October 1999 the Central East European Book Project Fund (CEEBP) awarded the following grants: ALBANIA 1. Elsie, Robert: History of Albanian Literature (Onufri) $3,558 BELARUS 1. Berger, Peter: The Capitalist Revolution (Tehnalohija) $1,200 2. Arche, cultural and political quarterly $1,681 BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA 1. Album: grant for electronic equipment $3,202 2. Lica, cultural quarterly $1,779 BULGARIA 1. Bauman, Zygmunt: Postmodern Ethics (LIK Press) $1,379 2. Volkov, Solomon: Conversations with Joseph Brodsky (Fakel Express) $1,690 3. Faber: grant for printing/binding equipment $3,958 4. Soros Center for the Arts - Sofia - contribution for the bilingual Bulgarian-English Catalogue of Cultural Journals in Bulgaria 1999/2000: $1,601 CROATIA 1. Giddens, Anthony: The Third Way. The Renewal of Social Democracy (Politicka Kultura) $1,779 2. Rawls, John: The Theory of Justice (Antibarbarus) $1,601 CZECH REPUBLIC 1. Bondy, Ruth: Jacob Edelstein of Theresienstadt, Elder of the Jews (Sefer) $1,690 2. Hermann, Adolf: My First Five Lives (Triada) $1,623 HUNGARY 1. Basara, Svetislav: Fama o biciklistima (JAK) $1,601 2. Aetas, historical quarterly $889 ROMANIA 1. Apostrof, literary quarterly $2,117 2. 22 Magazine, political and cultural weekly $2,668 SLOVAKIA 1. Index Association of Slovak Independent Publishers - contribution for the publication of an English catalogue, 1999: $2,138 YUGOSLAVIA 1. Woolf, Virginia: A Writer's Diary (Publisher 94) $1,023 OTHER 1. Sheshi (Prishtina), Kosovar cultural and literary monthly $2,699 2. Zeri (Prishtina): grant for electronic equipment $3,558 (the publisher of Sheshi) CEEBP has a new website <www.ceebp.org> ======================================================= Website Review ======================================================= Founded three years ago, ingenta.com is one of the most popular websites in the UK (number 7 preceded by such giants as BBC, Excite, Freeserve or Lycos). It provides access to over a million of articles from professional and specialist publications, including the Medline service. On the whole ingenta.com attracts 70% of UK academic sector’s online bibliographic search activity. Anyone can browse any of the 2,500 journals from 30 publishers included in ingenta.com’s database and display tables of contents, bibliographic information and abstracts free of charge. To view the full text of an article one has to either be a subscriber of given journal or to pay per view. As added value to the journal content, ingenta.com offers further services such as discussion group, e-commerce, information on conferences and other events in given field, etc. within their portal. Ingenta.com provides also access to bibliographic service BIDS. [JC] ======================================================= Translations Published - Update ======================================================= New titles published within the CEU Translation Project: BULGARIA 1. Burke, Edmund: Reflections on the Revolution in France, $2,500, $137/author’s sheet 2. Gellner. Ernest: Nations and Nationalism, $1,600, $173/ author’s sheet 3. Goffman, E.: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, $1,500, $102/author’s sheet 4. Weber, Max: Rationelle und Soziologische Grunde der Musik, $948 CROATIA Spinoza: Ethics, $5,310 SLOVENIA Barnes, Jonathan: Aristotle, $3,500 ======================================================= Supplement ======================================================= ‘EAST TRANSLATES EAST’ PROJECT STRATEGY OF BATORY FOUNDATION Foundations have been set a deadline of 1 May for the preparation of their strategies for the year 2001. Forum will try to share examples and ideas useful in preparing these strategies. In this issue we present a fragment of the strategy of the Publishing Program of the Batory Foundation in Poland regarding their ‘East Translates East’ Project for 2000. Please share with us your strategies wherever you feel that they could serve as an inspiration for others in writing their strategies. (…) 2. The Objectives and Roles of the [Publishing] Programme As a starting point for its grant-making activities, the Publishing Programme has adopted the fairly self-explanatory precept whereby the normal operation of a democratic society is largely dependent on the critical thinking skills of its citizens. And such skills can be hard in coming without books which expand the intellectual horizons of their readers. Thus, we have set out to make available to as wide a readership as possible a rich selection of titles which would provide its members with tools useful in understanding the reality of the modern world and facilitate their participation in public life. Our competitions were open to books dealing with democratic traditions and institutions, the economic and social transformations in Central and Eastern Europe and in Poland itself, with the roots of contemporary culture, and with recent history; last year, this thematic scope has been expanded to include legal and European issues (the situation of Poland vis a vis the integrating Europe). Our attention and our resources have been concentrated on books of the popular/academic type, on quality essays - on books which, in general, are not of a strictly academic or specialised nature. Among the titles benefiting from our grants, one can find new titles which define the framework for current debates as well as classic ones which, for one reason or another, have not been published before (such as works by Dworkin, Rawls, Popper, and others). In recent years, grants towards titles translated from other languages have been co-financed by OSI Regional Publishing Programme under the CEU Translation Project. Another objective, one which has been as important to us as it has to OSI, comprised increasing the intellectual exchange across the region by supporting the translation of books from Eastern and Southern European languages; the regional programme has been contributing to grants in this area as part of CEU East Translates East project. Albeit the number of titles published through this initiative to date is, in itself, nothing spectacular (9 books, with a further 18 currently under preparation), we believe this aspect of the competition to be very important in that our Foundation is, practically speaking, the only institution which will contemplate the co-financing of translations from the Czech or the Ukrainian - a fact which is popular knowledge among Polish publishers. While the PRO HELVETIA Foundation for Swiss Culture has expressed its readiness to finance the translation of works by authors from five Balkan states and from the Ukraine in the year 2000, this project will be but a small one. Given that knowledge and interest concerning the culture of other countries in the region and the lives of its inhabitants are regrettably small in Poland, the publication of translations from these countries is an exceptionally ungrateful task from the financial point of view; one could go so far as to venture that, were it not for our support, most of these titles would not be published at all. Of some significance to us is the fact that contemporary titles originating in Poland's neighbouring countries are published almost exclusively by small, ambitious publishing houses such as Swiat Literacki or Fundacja Pogranicza, and supporting such activity - informed by a sense of cultural duty and mission, not by commercial considerations - is in line with our Foundation's purpose and goals. In summarising the operation of our Programme to date, it can be said in all fairness that we have supported the publication of important, valuable books. There arises, nonetheless, the question of whether our continued assistance is in fact necessary. If our grants were discontinued, would the number of fine books published in Poland decrease in any material way? A recent evaluation drawn up by Ms Hanna Macierewicz, a specialist who tracks the publishing market in Poland, indicated that 57% of titles whose publication we refused to co-finance across the years of 1996-1998 were put out anyway (most of the books in this group were by Polish authors). This fact does not mean that our work has been pointless, if for no other reason than the fact that the publishers in question have been able to put out many titles which did not benefit from our support for simply because other projects of theirs received grants from our Foundation. One should bear in mind here that even the most efficient publishing houses in Poland continue to be rather weak from the economic perspective and that grants, reducing as they do the risk associated with the publication of a "difficult" book, make for an effect of multiplication - the publisher, having secured financing from the Batory Foundation, is in a position to take upon himself a number of other, non-subsidised projects. Thus, the results of the evaluation just cited should not be taken to mean that publication financing is, or was, not necessary. What these results do indicate, however, is that the Stefan Batory Foundation's gradual discontinuation of book subsidising should not occasion any dramatic decline in the number or quality of new titles appearing in Poland. Another point in favour of concluding our Publishing Programme in its current form is furnished by the fact that the books benefiting from its support are being published in ever-shorter printing runs, thus contravening the premise whereby we should lend our support to titles addressed to a wider group of recipients, leaving the support of specialised and scientific/academic books to KBN [Committee for Scientific Research, a major funder of scientific publications in Poland]. 3. Plans for the Year 2000 While the book market in Poland continues to be a difficult one, it is gradually attaining full development and the comparative stabilisation which accompanies it. In this particular area, the role of our Foundation does not entail the influencing of processes on the general level; it is, however, desirable that we bring our resources to bear in smaller areas, as provided for in the priorities of our Foundation. In our opinion, the resources at our disposal (the regional publishing programme has earmarked for our activities in the year 2000 the amount of US $ 20 000) should be used towards supporting the translation of titles in Eastern and Southern European languages into Polish (as part of the East Translates East project); in other words, our funds should be injected into that sector of the market which is generally neglected by other sponsors. Formula of Action, Principles (…) We will be looking to support the publication of titles from the general area of the humanities and social sciences, non fiction, and collections of essays; we will also be interested in contemporary prose "which reflects the transformations unfolding during recent years". The year of 1999 saw the first occasion on which we expanded our competition to include novels, eliciting considerable excitement among our grant recipients and resulting in the extension of financial support towards the publication of works by Dubravka Ugresic, Danilo Kis, and Ratko Cvetnic, among others; this year's second competition has drawn applications dealing with Polish translations of works by authors such as Yuri Andruhovich, Jachim Topol, and Daniela Hodrova. We will continue our policy of not extending grants towards the publication of specialised academic works, reference books and dictionaries, textbooks, and albums/art books. In considering the submitted applications, we will have regard to the substantial and artistic merits of the work, the quality of the translation, and the previous experience of the publisher (who should guarantee due quality of the editorial and technical aspects as well as efficient distribution). Publishers may present ideas for series of publications and their editorial plans for the coming two-three years. The concentration of our activities in the comparatively narrow field of "Eastern" translations will make it possible to establish closer co-operation with the applicants; we expect, for example, to set aside small amounts of money for the promotion/advertising of titles benefiting from grants. We have provided for the possibility of collaborating with other programmes [of the foundation], especially with the Eastern and Central Europe Forum. (…) Risks, Possible Negative Results of Our Activities Definition of the scope of our interests and activities to such a high degree of precision may lead some publishers to take action of an opportunistic nature, ie to prepare "Eastern" projects tailored for our competition in hopes of securing additional funding. In this respect, we intend to rely on our experience and our ability of assessing the intent and motivations of potential grant recipients; what's more, we are announcing our competition at a time when there are already - our own activities notwithstanding - a number of publishing houses with an "Eastern" profile (Swiat Literacki, Luk, Czarne, or Wydawnictwo WAB and the "Alongside" ["Obok"] series it has just launched). A method for avoiding the subsidising of books which nobody will want to buy is presented by the limiting of awarded amounts; we intend to continue our policy of subsidising but a portion of the publishing costs, with the brunt of the risk resting with the publisher himself, thus making for an incentive for effective promotion and sales of the title. ======================================================= 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> =======================================================
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Development, 2000 |