"This is something of a benchmark volume on the subject of publishing and book development in Africa (and in some other developing countries). It contains the proceedings, and reflects the thinking and the deliberations that emerged from a seminar on“Understanding the Educational Book Industry”, which was organized by the World Bank in Washington, DC in September 1997. Participants included representatives of publishing houses and book trade associations from both industrial and developing countries, as well as donor representatives with a strong interest in strengthening publishing capacity in Africa and in other parts of the world. The objective of the seminar was to offer World Bank Group staff from education, finance, and private sector development networks with a better understanding of the nature of educational publishing, including the linkages between government textbook policies, the publishing industry, and Bank-financed textbook operations. It also provided an opportunity for some participants to voice their current grievances about the World Bank’s textbook procurement procedures and bidding systems. The book contains over 30 papers which are grouped under four major themes: “Policies for the Long-Term Provision of Educational Materials’” “Finance and Book Trade Issues”, “Procurement, Protection, and Copyright”, and “The Role of Publishing Partnerships”, together with a section on “The Publishing Industry in the Twenty-First Century”. Contributions include papers reporting about the publishing industries in various countries of Africa, in Central and South America, the Caribbean, as well as in Eastern Europe. A record of the discussions that took place follows each section." (Hans M. Zell, Publishing, Books & Reading in Sub-Saharan Africa, 3d ed. 2008, nr. 1885)