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Book Production Skills in South Asia

by Habibur Rahman
THIS is somewhat more from my personal experience than based on much detailed knowledge And , do not pretend to be talking from much wisdom either This is merely to give some ideas on book production skills in South Asia. The production skills are pretty much the same everywhere, but the educational, social and economic conditions of the societies that produce books are quite different In different parts of even the SAARC ••entries. —
The possible Justification for this paper is" that I should try first to list some of the universals In book production In broad terms applicable to any culture — In terms especially appropriate for the publishing industries in this part of the world
in any developing country book publishing Is an industry small in monetary terms. Even then It Is a small switch that can set in motion and control a machine or an elec trlcal system carrying power to remote areas. Book publishing is the key' to educational and social and economic develop ment."
To produce a book is a teamwork before It goes to the hands of the readers. Each member of the team has a necessary part to play and one of them can be eliminated In the book industry four bastc elements must exist These are the author of a manuscript, the printer who turns the manuscript into a book and a bookseller who hands the book to over readers But the fourth element who is in the most central position and whose Job is least understood by people outside the book field is the publisher the main strategist and organizer of the total un dertaking. and one who serves as the basic taker of the bust ness risk of the book phenomenon The publisher s skill is based not only on the knowk^e of printing technicality, but also involves knowledge about the socio economic conditions of the people for whom the book is produced He must have nnag ination and ideas also These skills are mostly developed through experience Experience cannot be expected where book publication is not free and economically lucrative In developing countries the schools text book sector is a most viable business. This is almost everywhere monopoly business of the government This Is one reason why publication could not develop as a commercially inviting proposition in most SAARC countries except India
In some parts of the world specially In developing countries in South Asia, major publishers sometimes own their own printing press and book shops or printers or book sellers go Into book publishing And In areas where professional publishing has not yet developed, authors serve as their own publisher arranging a printer to print the books The author then sells to the bookshops or directly to indl vidua! readers
The printer is the manufac turer. They receive
manuscripts from publisher, and compose, print and bind an edition and send the book to the publisher. The printer plays no part in deciding what to print but merely does the Job required by the publishers. So the publisher controls the production depending on their skills.
When we discuss the production skills — pat comes up the questions of book design: type arrangement, page layout, colours of ink etc., the quality of printing, quality and appropriateness of paper, the efficiency of proof reading, quality of binding and maintaining production schedule.
In many SAARC countries the profession of book design was unknown or designers were not available or used in book production. But now within the last 6/7 years the situation has greatly changed due to development of modern electronic technology of desktop publishing marrying old typographic concepts to new computer technology, making, possible relatively inexpensive composition of books by publishers themselves rather than separate type setters Desktop publishing combines a microcomputer. computer pro grammes (software) for word
processing or. paper or tracing ready-copy for plates for print ing. The newest revolution in eluding colour scanning has Increased the production skill in publishing and the new technology has been adopted by publishers in Bangladesh. India. Pakistan. Srl Lanka and to some extent in Nepal
Publishers in Bangladesh have adopted almost all of the new technology to improve their production skill Some publishers are now using the most advanced new system that combine typeset quality text colour graphics on a page electronically At the same time National Book Centre Bangladesh is providing facilities. to Improve book produc tlon skill to the publisher lor further Improvement of the process from editing to print Ing as well as marketing of books. All the training courses are conducted by Bangladesh National Book Centre on a regular basis
Due to Improvement in our production skill publishers are producing good quality books and have been able to export our product to Europe USA. India. Japan. Malaysia etc We are proud that we have received an order from an European publisher to produce a book for them It proves that our skills have gone upto to an international standard But I must confess that unfortu nately our binding quality has not yet been able to improve rnatchlngly The worst of all the weaknesses the publishers in Bangladesh suffer from tn volves miserable capital flow
At the time of indepen dence both India and Pakistan had some book production in frastructures which had con tlnued to build an effective publishing industry Both the countries have been able to improve their production skill in almost all sectors including
huge data inventory, promotion. ordering, invoicing and accounts and processing has become extremely quick and accurate. Today. India Is among the ten largest book producing countries in the world and ranks third, after JJSA and UK. In the production bf English titles. With an average annual production of about 40,000 titles. India Is also the largest book producer among the SAARC Countries About 40 per cent of the Indian publishers have their own printing presses. There are about 60.000 printing presses in India and around 26.000 in Pakistan. Due to improvement in book production India has been able to export books with 400 millions rupees In 1992 93. All this has been possible as a result of progress in production skill and quality control In publishing
Training programmes for editors, book designers and managers have been largely left to local resources The Delhi University Is running a three-year course on book publishing at the undergraduate level — on editing, production, publishing and sales Book House Training Centre (BHTC) and Institute of Book Publishing are also providing short course
for personnel working in publishing Industry In Pakistan industry In Pakistan National Book Council along with UNESCO also provide regular training in editing, marketing and also book production
There are yawning commu nication gaps between the two neighbouring countries. Recently a Joint Committee has been set up with representatives from Pakistan and India to facilitate cooperation in import. export and production technology
In all the SAARC countries, except Maldives, the govern ment policies also have a di rect Impact on the publishing industry Tariff, duties and sometime restrictions on im port have a direct Impact on book production On the other hand rationalization of school book has had a serious negative impact on private sector
The publishing industries tn Srl Lanka, along with everyone In SAARC countries, fell into hard times economically in 1990 The government has traditionally been the publisher of school books. Even then publishing industry is flourishing there on the follow ing social backgrounds (1) In Srl Lanka there is strong popu lar enthusiasm for education and the literacy rate: at around 89 per cent, is the highest in the SAARC countries (2) Manpower resources of high educational standing has produced suffirlent skilled workforce for publishing In-
Havtng started with the Introduction of the computer ized typesetting system in 1985 86 all-round computer! ration of the publishing pro cess has been partially achieved The quality of the production facilities and print Ing technofogy has also helped to improve their production skill In view of this the
English language publications have gone up by 70 per cent since 1985. Because of consid erable Import of books from the west, the Srl Lankans have become quality conscious although the cost of production is relatively high due to high cost of import of printing paper, Ink and machinery etc. In such a situation the production of books in gerferal is understandably still very small In volume
Training for the development of book production skills Is not Institutionalised In the developed countries. In devel oping countries where publishing Is not yet economically popular and viable there Is a need of Institutional training In this field Aslan Cultural Center for UNESCO is carrying out an yearly training programme for book personnel of these coun tries since 1972. Unfortunately most of these trainings are re celved by Government officers and not by professionals
Before the socio-economic development plan was launched In Bhutan in 1961 no secular schools existed in the Kingdom, but religions centred education was offered in a few monasteries. Religious text-books for these institutions were published using xy lographic printing. Formal schools came into existence after 1961 and the Department of Education be .gan to publish textbooks In Dzongkha (the national lan guage). The Department of Education publishes Its own English language books to suit Bhutanese schools, particularly at the primary level. Publications in the field of ed ucation have increased In recent years with the introduc tlon of a new primary curricu. lum.
Bhutan has a few publishers dealing with books on various subjects like history, folk songs, folk tales, legends, rell gious texts, language learning materials and so on. Letter press and offset are the main means of printing, while xylog raphy is not uncommon for religious books: for quality colour printing, printers in India and other foreign countries are utilised
In Maldives there are only 24 titles produced annually whereas India produces 40.000 This is not as bad as it looks. While India produces one title for every 21.000 peo pie. the Maldives produce one title for 8.000
I have Just pointed out some features and not discussed de tails of the book production facilities in the region The uptodate situation of produc tlon skills In all the SAARC countries as we know feature new and exciting developments almost weekly The publisher and printer have want very much to take ad van 'age of the continuing progress abroad In book production and reducing the production cost and prices
The above axis delivered as the keynote paper at the SAARC Seminar on Book Production and Marketing held tn Dhaka on may 3 5 Mr Rahman Is the Mil Managing Director of Academic Publi shers