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Regional Publishing Center, OSI-Budapest, 8 August 1997, Issue 5
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================================================================

In this issue
-From the editor
-Glossary of Publishing Terms in Romania
-New Publishing Coordinator in Yugoslavia
-Copyright Handbook and Glossary of Publishing Terms in Russia
-Website Review: Scholarly Electronic Publishing
-Hungarian Bank Interest-Support Program
-Translation Project - Update

================================================================

Dear Colleagues,

It seems that the Glossaries of Publishing and Printing Terms are
being published everywhere. The Bulgarian version mentioned in the
previous edition of Forum has been followed by the Romanian and
Russian ones. If you work in a country where Russian is widely spoken,
you might consider approaching Lena Samoilo with a request for a few
copies of it!

The Website described in this issue can be recommended to anyone
interested in the electronic future of university-level publishing.

Putting a description of a governmental Hungarian Bank
Interest-Support Program probably needs explanation. I decided to
share it with you for two reasons. First, the program is interesting
for its use of financial "leveraging" (using a small amount of money
to make a much larger amount available). Second, the way it was
lobbied for deserves attention. The publishers' association, which
initiated it, managed to have it approved on both political and
banking level. The method they used can be applied also elsewhere.

With best wishes,

Jerzy Celichowski

=================================================================
Foundation Publishing
=================================================================

*** Glossary of Publishing Terms in Romania ***

A Romanian-English/English-Romanian version of Glossary of Publishing
and Printing Terminology containing about 2000 entries has been
published in Romania in a print run of 500 copies. The Publishing
Program of the Soros Foundation for an Open Society - Romania, which
covered the cost of printing and binding of $700, will distribute it
free of charge to all interested publishers, 2 copies for each
publisher. [based on information received from Marina Ghitoc,
<marina@buc.soros.ro>]

*** New Publishing Coordinator in Yugoslavia ***

We welcome Sreten Ugricic as the new Publishing Coordinator at the
Fund for an Open Society - Yugoslavia, effective from 1 August.
Sreten, who attended the Publishing Staff Meeting in Budapest last
March, worked previously at the Podgorica office of the foundation.
Milena Dragicevic-Sesic will continue to be involved in the publishing
program as a Program Consultant. [JC]

*** Copyright Handbook and Glossary of Publishing Terms in Russia ***

A Copyright Handbook written and adapted to the Russian copyright law
by Lynette Owen and a Glossary of Publishing and Printing Terminology
are going to be published in Russia in September.

The handbook, which will be supplemented with the texts of the
Universal Copyright Convention, the Berne Convention and the Russian
copyright law, should be launched at the Moscow Book Fair starting on
3 September. The Journalist and Journalism Program of OSI-Moscow will
buy from Aspect Press in Moscow, the publisher of the handbook, 2,000
copies for free distribution paying it $6,000. The remaining 1,000
copies will be sold at about $1,5.

The Glossary, developed by International Book Development in London,
will also be published by Aspect Press in a print run of 1,500 copies
by mid-September. The project is financed by the Know-How Fund (the
development cost) and the Regional Publishing Center (the cost of
printing - not decided yet). At least 200 copies will be taken by
OSI-Moscow. The distribution of the remaining copies will be quite
innovative, they will be added free of charge as a bonus to the buyers
of the copyright handbook.

The Glossary will or has been published in seven languages: Bulgarian
(see Forum 3), Czech, Hungarian, Polish (1990), Romanian (see above),
Russian and Slovak. [based on information received from Elena Samoilo,
<esamoilo@opsocin.msk.ru>]

================================================================
Website Review
================================================================

*** Scholarly Electronic Publishing ***

<http://citd.scar.utoronto.ca/CAPA/E-publishing.html>

This small and well-organized site provides a good introduction to the
uses of the internet for university-level publishing and scholarly
communication. It includes:

* a bibliography of over 30 recent articles and reports on academic
electronic publishing (EP), all of them available on the web (see the
essay on the "Potential of Scholarly Electronic Publishing" for a
brief overview)
* links to about 30 catalogues and archives of electronic journals and
texts (over 2000 journals and newsletters, and thousands of
book-length texts, are now available on the World Wide Web, many of
them for free)
* 36 direct links to sample electronic journals, and 25 more links to
publishers of on-line journals (see the "Project MUSE" site for some
examples of cutting-edge academic EP)
* a calendar of conferences on academic EP with links to relevant
sites
* links to many other resources, such as EP handbooks, citation style
guides for electronic documents, electronic text centers, and
electronic library projects.

A similar web page, with a more American focus, is maintained by the
Association of American University Presses at
<http://aaup.princeton.edu/linkpage.html>. [DC]

================================================================
Publishing General
================================================================

*** Hungarian Bank Interest-Support Program ***

This program of the Hungarian Ministry of Culture was started last
year. The Soros Foundation was not involved in this project; however,
it may serve as a useful model for us. The initial amount of the money
allocated for the program was 30 million forints ($215,000). This
money was to be used to pay half of the interest payable on loans
taken by publishers (the loaned capital was to come from the bank).

Applications go through two screenings. The first is done by a
ministry committee, whose composition changes every year. Two aspects
of applications are evaluated: the business plan and the cultural
value of the project. In practise this committee decides only whether
an application has a value for culture or not. The screening at the
bank level, where the banking experts are assisted by a publishing
consultant, concentrates on the business side of the project. An
inadequate business plan will cause the project to be turned down.

Both publishing houses and distribution companies can apply.
Publishers receive support to alleviate their liquidity problems, the
distributors to take on distribution of titles that are worthwhile but
sell slowly. They are then obliged to pay for them in cash as opposed
to the normal practice of taking books on "sale-or-return" basis. Thus
good books are at first "pushed" at the publishing house level, and
then "pulled" at the distribution level.

The amount of the loan has to be between 5 and 50 million forints (at
present between $27,000 and $270,000). It can be taken for a period of
time no longer than one year. Contracts are signed with the bank
(loan) and with the ministry (interest support). A contract on the
payment of 50% of the interest is also signed between the ministry and
the bank.

The benefit of the program is impressive. The initial 30 million
forints in interest support released more than 300 million forints in
loans, which corresponds to books worth about 1,000 million forints.
(The total turnover of Hungarian publishing of 12,000 million
forints.)

The 1996 program was a success, and the amount of money allocated for
1997 was increased to 50 million forints ($270,000). All repayments of
loans have so far been made on time, and the bank is now fully
convinced of the value of the program (initially it was not, as
publishing is considered to be an unprofitable, unstable and rather
small business, which, additionally, is incapable of providing
credible collateral.)

The program, initiated by the Hungarian Book Publishers' and
Booksellers' Association, needed a lot of lobbying to be approved and
implemented. There are some lessons to be drawn here. While lobbying
for such programs, politicians with cultural background as well as
personnel from government ministries should be avoided. They usually
do not understand the mechanism of such programs or are too
bureaucratic for them. The secret of the Hungarian program's success
was contacts and lobbying with economic experts of a party and using
political rather than ministerial connections. The fact that in the
talks money came up more often than lofty cultural values also helped
the program - and through the program also the publishing industry.

[based on information acquired from Istvan Bart, President of the
Hungarian Book Publishers' and Booksellers' Association]

================================================================
Translation Project - Update
================================================================

New titles published within the project:

Romania

Williamson, Oliver E.; Winter Sidney G.: The Nature of the Firm,
grant: $2,400 + $900 (copyright), $159/author's sheet (TP 1996)

Russia

Mel'cuk, Igor: Cours de morphologie generale, grant: $5,200,
$200/author's sheet (TP 1996)