The Ukrainian president recently issued an order “On Individual Measures to Develop Book Publishing in Ukraine.” Unfortunately, the title of this order only further perpetuates the traditional attitude of officials to book publishing as though it were a national craft, like Opishnia pottery. This latest government document contains no mention of the book market, creating additional jobs, meeting demand, or filling the state’s coffers.
However, for the first time the presidential order is positioned to “ensure the realization of citizens’ constitutional right to information.” That the problems of Ukrainian book publishing are viewed as human rights problems is a major shift toward an adequate understanding of the true state of affairs: Ukrainian citizens cannot fully exercise their right to Ukrainian books.
The order obliges the Cabinet of Ministers “to draft and endorse within three months” an entire mechanism for enforcing the rights of Ukrainian readers: “To protect the domestic book market... To introduce minimum norms aimed at providing citizens with retail book distribution services... To develop a state popularization program,” etc. This order is the first in Ukraine’s history to have been maximally influenced by experts, which is why this first and only “book publishing” order in the last 15 years is cause for cautious optimism.
It is worth taking a closer look not so much at these declarations as at the means of their implementation, defining them being the task of the Cabinet of Ministers. Before anything can be “drafted and endorsed,” a banal audit is required to determine what we have and how much. Surprisingly enough, to this day there are no statistics: no one knows the total capacity of the domestic book market (how much money Ukrainians spend on books every year). Nobody knows what percentage of this money is spent on Ukrainian books; the State Statistics Bureau does not single out data on payments to the budget from book publishers, which is why we do not know the share of book publishing in the country’s economy. Enveloped in secrecy (corrupt secrecy, perchance?) are volumes of Russian book imports, both legal and unofficial.
Even accounting of print products, which the Book Chamber carries out on behalf of the state, does not help Ukrainian publishers get their bearings in the domestic market. According to the latest data, as of Dec. 30, 2005, last year 12,728 books and brochures were published in Ukraine. Of these, 4,683 are abstracts. This leaves us with 8,045 new titles.
How many of them make it to the market? From this figure we have to subtract numerous textbooks, books without market pressruns ordered by authors (under 1,000 copies), and publications financed by ministries and departments, which never make it to the market, etc. Will this leave us with at least 5,000 titles? The Moscow- based publishing house “Exmo” alone supplies more books to the Ukrainian market.
The silence of this statistical vacuum was recently broken by State Television and Radio Committee chairman Ivan Chyzh, who broke some rather immodest rhetorical “wind” by telling a wrap-up meeting that “the year 2005 was quite successful in terms of domestic book publishing.”
Therefore, the first step in implementing the president’s “book” order should be to bring state statistics in order. Knowing the number of bookstores alone (as well as their type of ownership, floor space, location, specialization, and range of products), one can easily start “introducing minimum norms for providing citizens with retail book distribution services.” Here we could borrow from the experience of our neighbors that have civilized book publishing markets: what “norms” have been implemented in Poland, the Czech Republic, the Baltic republics, or Russia?
There is no such information in Ukraine. Perhaps it would be worthwhile sending a small group of experts to gather such information so that we would not have to make it up. At the same time, while the implementation of this order is still at zero point, it might be a good idea to find out what readers really want and which of their rights they consider to be under threat.
This can be accomplished by carrying out a full-scale opinion survey: who reads what, when, and how much; who buys what, how often, and where; how readers find what they need among the supply of books and what sources of information they trust; what they expect and what they are indifferent to? All of this should be determined in a breakdown by age, education, occupation, gender, region, political leanings, etc. Only then can one move on to “surgery” by means of such orders.
After all, how can one develop a “program to popularize domestic book publishing” without sociological data? Sociologist Oleksandr Semashko points out: “A literary critic, psychologist, literary semiologist begins his work where a sociologist stops.” According to him, the purpose of criticism is “to perceive society with the help of literature... the dependence of literature on society... the study of social conditions that promote the emergence, spread, and reception of literary works” (Sociology of Culture, Kyiv: Karavela, 2000; Lviv: Novyi svit, 2002).
Critics and analysts are primarily such “popularization” managers. Therefore, above all a “popularization program” should be about creating conditions for their work. We have a paltry seven newspapers or journals dedicated to analyzing books. The financial situation of all of them without exception makes it impossible to adequately pay for studies designed to “perceive society with the help of literature.”
I am not suggesting that they need banal subsidies from the government. A more effective way would be to start centralized subscriptions for such periodicals to have them delivered to libraries. In this way we could kill three birds with one stone: the informational hunger of many years would end in libraries; their users would get a guide to the book market; and book reviewers at general media outlets would find guidelines in specialized publications. Incidentally, this option does not require additional budget allocations, but merely a rational redistribution of funds within existing state programs.
Another possible direction of “popularization” would be to launch regular book programs on several leading television channels. Apparently, this would not require any additional funding either. Promoting reading can be quite logically added to the social advertising budget, which is “managed” by the State Committee for Technical Regulation and Consumer Policy.
Meanwhile, funding for an Internet portal of reviews and literary and book publishing news would be an altogether laughable budgetary expense. The cumulative effect of only these three “popularizing” measures would significantly improve the situation in the informational space surrounding book publishing already in the first six months.
Deputy Prime Minister for Humanitarian Policy Vyacheslav Kyrylenko has called a working meeting to discuss the mechanisms of implementing the presidential order. All that remains is to wait and see what becomes of it. After all, there is an abundance of creative (and low-cost) ideas in the anthroposphere, such as the following idea proposed by one English researcher: “We should convince developers of the need to install built-in, wall-mounted book cases in each new apartment. We should publish an illustrated brochure, Books in Your Home, which could be distributed free of charge in bookstores and libraries” (Gordon Gram. The Book Business).
