"Reviews the activities and achievements of a number of African book trade and book promotional organizations, thereafter examines the progress that has been achieved in some areas affecting the book sector, and discusses issues such as the World Bank as a major player in African publishing, digital
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media and African publishing, Internet access by the African book professions, collaboration and knowledge sharing, production quality, research and documentation, and African books in the international market place. The author concludes “while two or three decades ago it might have been correct to describe African publishing as extremely underdeveloped, this is certainly not the picture now. It is true of course that many formidable obstacles and challenges remain, including weak technology infrastructures, high distribution costs, the lack of coherent national book policies, high tariff barriers, illiteracy, extreme poverty, and little disposable income, among them. Nevertheless, significant gains have been made, and there have been several collective efforts to build capacity. Not all of them have been successful, and there have been many setbacks and disappointments too, notably APNET, but it is vital to build on the gains. While both governments and donors have heavily invested in education over the years, support for the book sector and library development, paradoxically, has remained quite dismal for the most part. Sadly, thirty-five years after the Ife conference, most African governments still don’t seem to appreciate that a flourishing book and reading culture is central to, and an indicator of, development in any country." (Hans M. Zell, Publishing, Books & Reading in Sub-Saharan Africa, nr. 2521, online at http://www.hanszell.co.uk/pbrssa/index.shtml)
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"This dissertation discusses interactions between politics and book publishing by missions and colonial governments in areas of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia over approximately 200 years [...] From its inception, book publishing in the Pacific Islands has been a significant instrument of ideo
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logical power [...] Far from portraying a unidirectional flow, wherein only foreigners have published information and instructed Pacific Islanders, this dissertation argues that some islanders have sought to participate in book publishing so as to express their views and/or those of their associates or communities, and this in turn has contributed to persuading and influencing other people, sometimes even across the Pacific. The organization of mission societies around publications, for example in biblical material, schoolbooks, or laws, often reinforced indigenous power, but it also eased the imposition of colonial rule. Ironically, command of text culture assisted islanders to negotiate with new and sometimes stronger political forces. The colonial era has reinforced the role of text culture in the organization of society, and published reiteration of particular languages, customs, and geographical boundaries has helped to shape and reshape polities that have endured well into the age of independent nation-states." (Abstract)
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"An attempt to analyze the state of the book industries in sub-Saharan Africa thirty-five years after the major conference on publishing and book development in Africa that was held at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Nigeria, in 1973. Part one of this two-part article starts
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off with a look at the wider picture of development on the continent, and the support – or the lack of it rather for the most part – for publishing, books and libraries by successive African governments over the last three decades. In examining the very substantial body of literature that has been written on African publishing and book development over the last two decades, the author believes a great deal of it is still characterized by far too much generalization, and that there have been dozens of articles recently containing sweeping, mostly unsubstantiated statements to explain the current unsatisfactory state of the book industries in Africa and the factors that hold back its development." (Hans M. Zell, Publishing, Books & Reading in Sub-Saharan Africa, 3d ed. 2008, nr. 2520)
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"In diesem Aufsatz wird der Status quo der theoretischen und empirischen Erfolgsfaktorenforschung für belletristische Bücher aufgezeigt. Die abgeleiteten Einflussfaktoren, die zentrale Steuerungsgrößen für das Management der Verlagshäuser darstellen, werden nach den vier Elementen des Marketin
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g-Mix – Produkt, Preis, Kommunikation und Distribution – untergliedert. Neben inhaltlichen Erkenntnissen stehen auch methodische Aspekte im Fokus, denn die gewählte Forschungsweise hat in der Erfolgsfaktorenforschung erhebliche inhaltliche Konsequenzen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass sich die bisherige Faktorenforschung auf den Einfluss des Starwerts des Autors, die Aktualität des Inhaltes, die Editionsform und Cross-Selling (Komplementärgüter) sowie den Einfluss der Werbung für Kunden, Rezensionen durch Kritiker bzw. Kunden und Bestsellerlisten konzentriert. Somit liegt der Schwerpunkt der bisherigen Forschung auf Variablen der Produkt- und Kommunikationspolitik. Der Verkaufspreis als Kerndeterminante der Preispolitik findet ebenfalls Berücksichtigung, während im Bereich der Distributionspolitik nur der Einfluss von Verlagsgröße und Verlagsimage genauer untersucht wurde." (Zusammenfassung)
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"Indian books have increasingly begun to find a market in Africa and Indian publishers now find it both lucrative and important to attend book fairs in different African countries. One of the advantages that Indian publishers have is in terms of prices. They are able to produce good quality books at
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a fraction of the prices that are charged by publishers from the West. Similarly, African publishers are beginning to find a market in India." (GIZ library Bonn)
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"Loosely divided into three sections that focus on the past, the present, and the future, the papers in the proceedings of the 2005 Bibliophilia Africana conference offer a wide variety of contributions on the state of the book in Africa, and on topics such as promoting a reading culture, book and n
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ewspaper publishing, collecting books and archival materials, preservation of books and oral literature, public libraries, and accessibility of literature. There also some papers on the impact of new technology and the Internet on book development and publishing. The volume includes book related experiences from South and Southern Africa, as well as contributions from Argentina, the USA, and the UK." (Hans M. Zell, Publishing, Books & Reading in Sub-Saharan Africa, 3d ed. 2008, nr. 303)
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"The point is that Africa, whether South, East or West, is still dominated by Western publishers. They have been doing sterling work. But the fact that only a small section of locals have control over what is published has implications for the kind of material that is published." (GIZ Library Bonn)
"A useful practical guide for all those involved in setting up book policy strategies, and the formulation and adoption of national book acts, especially those in the developing world. It sets out the objectives of a national book policy, and then deals with a review of the sub-sectors concerned (i.
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e. author, publisher, printer, distributor/bookseller, and the reader and libraries), examining policy definitions, the law relating to books, the different components of book development, and providing guidelines for book policy strategies. A separate chapter deals with textbooks for schools, and two appendices cover “Formulating a national book policy” (including aspects of evaluation and development strategies), and “A model book law”." (Hans M. Zell, Publishing, Books & Reading in Sub-Saharan Africa, 3d ed. 2008, nr. 2030) [refers to the first edition]
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