"A holistic way of approaching the question of how African university presses can reposition themselves in support of the broader shift of some African universities towards a greater focus on research, is to consider shifts in the dominant institutional logic in the academic publishing industry. Bas
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ed on a baseline survey of university presses in Africa, in-depth case studies of selected university presses, and an analysis of the publishing choices made by African academics, this research project examined the opportunities and constraints faced by university presses in Africa. It provides an overview of the African university press landscape and shows that there is a small, active group of university presses. University presses in Africa are not yet making use of technological advances to reconfigure their production, distribution and marketing processes, nor are they experimenting with new publishing models such as open access. While case studies of selected university presses surfaced unsurprising challenges (such as scarce resources and limited capacity), they also show that university presses in Africa are constrained by institutional logics that are holding them back from experimenting with new ways of doing things. The research also reveals that an alarmingly high number of academic authors at one flagship research university in Africa are choosing to publish monographs with predatory publishers. The report concludes with a set of pragmatic recommendations; recommendations that are simultaneously attuned to the opportunities and to the realities of African university presses as revealed by the research conducted." (Executive summary)
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"Ethiopia printed more than 78 million textbooks for 20.1 million students under GEQIP1. When the current reliance on development partners to provide teaching/learning materials comes to an end, these impressive gains can be sustained only if the Ethiopian government allocates adequate, predictable
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yearly financing from the treasury to do so. Based on the experience of GEQIP1, the average budget to sustain the provision of textbooks and teaching guides is estimated at 6–8 percent of the yearly recurrent budget for education (8–10 percent if supplementary materials are added). A second prerequisite for sustaining these gains is to develop an effective information management system to track national demand for textbooks in relation to supply and facilitate inventory control. To handle the complexities of international competitive bidding and maintain a strict timeline for routine delivery, the MoE should plan a robust capacity-building exercise that will help Ethiopia not only to manage textbook provision for larger linguistic groups but mainstream access to textbooks for minority groups as well. Lack of expertise and limited production facilities of local publishers and printers have required the government to resort to international alternatives, sometimes to the detriment of local enterprises. Given that it would be preferable to rely on local suppliers to produce teaching/learning materials of comparable quality to those produced internationally, a systematic effort is essential to scale up local capacity and enable the local printing industry to become competitive in supplying national requirements. As in many nations, Ethiopia’s weakest link in the textbook supply chain is the distribution system. Schools in rural and remote areas suffer the most. Restructuring the delivery system would ensure more timely distribution of teaching/learning materials from districts (woredas) to schools. Finally, students must be encouraged to bring their textbooks to school rather than keep them at home for fear of damaging them and incurring fines. Teachers, who are the primary facilitators of learning, must be trained in effective handling of textbooks and to play an active role in sensitizing families to the importance of using textbooks in the classroom." (Main findings, page xiv)
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"Undécimo número de El libro en cifras, que apareció por primera vez en junio de 2012, con un objetivo: retratar en cifras la situación del libro, la lectura, las bibliotecas y el derecho de autor en Iberoamérica. Desde entonces, dos veces al año, este boletín ha venido ofreciendo informes so
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bre el registro de títulos con isbn en la región, bien concentrándose en un área geográfica específica, o bien brindando actualizaciones a partir de los datos disponibles más recientes. A esta mirada al registro de títulos, se han sumado reseñas de estudios que en el Cerlalc encontramos de interés, cuyos resultados y conclusiones glosamos y contextualizamos para los lectores iberoamericanos. Así se ha configurado el perfil de esta publicación, que tomada en conjunto permitiría constatar en qué ámbitos específicos del ecosistema del libro ha crecido, durante este cinco años, el interés por realizar mediciones, censos, encuestas, etc., y en cuáles persisten todavía enormes vacíos. Esta entrega ofrece un primer vistazo al registro de títulos con ISBN en América Latina en 2016. El hecho más sobresaliente es la disminución, por segundo año consecutivo, en el total de títulos que se dieron de alta en las agencias nacionales: pasó de 196.450 títulos en 2015 a 189.857 en 2016. Tras más de una década de constante crecimiento, que alcanzó su cota más alta en 2014, se produce una reversión de la tendencia. Conviene, sin embargo, ser cautos antes de apresurar conclusiones, pues, a pesar de la caída, el de 2016 es el tercer registro más alto de los últimos diez años." (Editorial)
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"Das klassische Marketing wird heutzutage durch verschiedene Möglichkeiten der Internetkommunikation und der digitalen Medien ergänzt, die über alle Sparten hinweg in zunehmendem Masse relevant werden. Im vorliegenden Band, der den Titel 'Verlagsmarketing' von Ulrich Huse in idealer Weise ergänz
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t, werden nicht nur zentrale Begriffe des Online-Marketings und E-Commerce für Verlage und den verbreitenden Buchhandel erläutert, sondern auch derzeit virulente und zukünftige Problemstellungen kenntnisreich und praxisnah diskutiert." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"[This book] gathers essays from twenty-seven leading figures in book publishing about their work. Representing both large houses and small, and encompassing trade, textbook, academic, and children's publishing, the contributors make the case for why editing remains a vital function to writers–and
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readers–everywhere. Ironically for an industry built on words, there has been a scarcity of written guidance on how to actually approach the work of editing. This book will serve as a compendium of professional advice and will be a resource both for those entering the profession (or already in it) and for those outside publishing who seek an understanding of it. It sheds light on how editors acquire books, what constitutes a strong author-editor relationship, and the editor's vital role at each stage of the publishing process–a role that extends far beyond marking up the author's text. This collection treats editing as both art and craft, and also as a career. It explores how editors balance passion against the economic realities of publishing." (Publisher description)
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"In 2014, the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) government in Tanzania decided to discontinue the market-based system for textbook provision that was established in the early 1990s and revert to full state control. Drawing on the theory of political settlements and the literature on Tanzania's industrial po
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litics, the article examines the political economy of textbook provision in this country in order to generate new insights into the relations between the educational, political, and economic spheres. It showshow donor ideology and practices, while subjecting textbooks to generic market principles, also promoted the interests of Western publishing corporations. It then argues that the distribution of power within the state, and the ambiguous relations between the CCM ruling elites, bureaucrats, and the capitalist class, prevented the consolidation of a textbook industrial policy geared towards supporting the local publishing industry. Finally, the article explores elites' diverse corrupt practices to capture public funding for textbooks at the national and local levels. Under Tanzania's country-specific political settlement, the textbook sector, far from primarily serving educational goals, has indeed been reduced to a vast site of primitive accumulation." (Abstract)
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"The persistence of print publishing means that librarians must continue to collect and pay attention to publishing developments in this type of material. The fractured environment and lack of unified distribution mechanisms, a situation that is only exacerbated by ongoing turmoil in the region will
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require libraries to maintain a presence in several markets to capture relevant output. Relationships with local vendors and publication houses will continue to be necessary for the foreseeable future. On the other hand, improvements to infrastructure in parts of the Arab world, and interest among Arab publishing houses in developing their e-publication divisions suggest that there may be significant changes to the publishing industry in the years to come." (Conclusion, page 24)
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"A review of select new literature in English that has appeared on the topic of publishing and book development in Africa published during the course of 2015. It covers books, papers in edited collections, journal articles, Internet documents and reports, interviews, as well as a number of blog post
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ings. Records are grouped under a range of regional/country and topic-specific headings." (Academia.edu)
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"The study is divided into three parts, the first of which describes the Islamic State’s publishing house, Maktabat al-Himma, and its activities and offers a rough chronology of when the group published various works. The second part examines the group’s classroom textbooks, drawing comparisons
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with the Saudi religious curriculum and highlighting the Islamic State’s unique program of “ISization” that makes them especially lethal. The paper’s third part features a deep dive into other literature produced by the group, including book-length editions, manuals of ritual observance, and instructions to fighters, as well as shorter pamphlets. The paper closes with a series of concluding observations and policy recommendations, as well as appendices that include a list of the works surveyed, translations by the author of selections from the classroom textbooks, images of textbook covers, and a glossary of terminology IS uses in its literature." (Executive summary, page xi)
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"A qualitative study into the readership preferences of children in Rwanda, from the perspective of over seventy children under the age of nine from around the country, and ten key publishing houses in Kigali." (Abstract)
"The Guide to Developing Open Textbooks has been developed to assist teachers, teaching support personnel and educational technology administrators to: 1. understand the value of open education, OER and open textbooks for teaching and learning; 2. appreciate the potential value of developing an open
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textbook platform; 3. select appropriate technology to build an open textbook platform, using either existing services offered free on the Internet or open-source tools, based on local needs and resources; and 4. build, manage and maintain an open textbook platform." (Objectives, page 5-6)
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"Die spanische und lateinamerikanische Literatur und ihre institutionelle und mediale Vermittlung in den deutschen Buchmarkt sind Gegenstand des vorliegenden Bandes. Die Interferenzen zwischen dem spanisch- und dem deutschsprachigen Literaturbetrieb werden von ausgewiesenen Experten aus Wissenschaft
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und Praxis anhand von Fallstudien dokumentiert und kartographiert." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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