Publishing in Developing Countries: Problems and Solutions

1
Publishing in Developing Countries Problems and
Solutions
2
Introduction

• Who am I?
• Focus of session
• Academic books
• Scholarly journals
• Africa

3
The international need for national content

• A national newspaper, the New Vision, picked up a
  study published in the Ugandan journal African
  Health Sciences showing that about half of
  chloroquine tablets and injections in Uganda are
  fake or substandard
• Implications for Malaria research
• Implications for efficacy trials of chloroquine
• Implications for public health policies

4
The need for a local publishing industry

• Communicate local/regional science
• Local/regional scope/problems
• Local/regional language
• Develop local capacity in editorship, publishing
  and writing
• Acquire and increase credibility
• Promote research on local problems
• Encourage the use of science in decision-making

5
Brief History

• 1960s/70s high point for academic community
• And consequently for academic publishing
• High government investment in education at all
  levels
• Followed by economic and social crash

6
World Bank intervention

• At a meeting with African vice-chancellors in
  Harare in 1986, the World Bank argued that higher
  education in African countries in Africa was a
  luxury that most African countries were better
  off closing universities at home and training
  graduates overseas
• That position was later modified but the Bank was
  still calling for universities in Africa to be
  trimmed and restructured to produce only those
  skills which the "market" demanded

7
East African Common Market

• Agreements between Kenya/Tanzania and Uganda to
  facilitate trade
• Breakdown in 1970s
• Difficulties in selling within the region
• Rapidly rising cost of commodities
• especially paper
• Inflation
• Departure of many of the multinational publishing
  companies
• Harder to make sales inter-country smaller
  markets

8
Multinationals

• Multinationals still control the majority of
  publishing within the continent
• Control c.60 educational publishing in South
  Africa
• Maskew Miller merged with Longman and now part of
  Pearson Group reports that they publish
  approximately one out of every three textbooks in
  South Africa

9
Multinationals

• Main players
• Pearson (aka Longman)
• Macmillan
• OUP / CUP
• Macmillan main (only?) publisher/book supplier in
  Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland
• there is no (reported) local publishing

10
Volume of book production

• Little data of publishing within the continent
• Publishers Association (UK) provide market
  profiles for some countries specifically for
  UK/international publishers to identify possible
  opportunities
• Much publishing was/is controlled by government

11
1995 comparison (the most recent year with
comparative data)

• Nigeria pop.gt120m, publication 1,314 titles
• 0.1095 per 1000 population
• South Africa pop gt42m, publication 5,418 titles
• 0.129 per 1000 population
• Norway pop 4.55m, publication 7265 titles
  (excl. Textbooks)
• 1.597 per 1000 population
• Africa has 15 world's population, but produces
  c.2 total books
• SA publishers c.80 Africas books (pers comm.)
• ltsource, UNESCO Inst for Statisticsgt

12
Predominance of textbooks

• c.95 all books are school textbooks
• However, market not saturated
• Tanzania The M-of-E reports bookstudent ratios
  14 - 17
• reality is estimated to be lower
• Many government-subsidised books are diverted to
  bookshops were the well-to-do buy them

13
University presses

• Created to solve the problems of student textbook
  publishing
• Local knowledge/research appropriate for
  students
• Affordable publication
• Presses
• Dar es Salaam (1979)
• Nairobi University Press (1984)
• Published 40 titles by 2000
• Makerere University Press (1979)
• Published 12 titles by 2000
• Addis Ababa University Press (1967)

14
University presses

• Weak
• Poorly funded
• Expected to make profit
• Frequently rely on authors to pay for publication
• Rapid turn-round of (inexperienced, unskilled)
  staff
• Addis Ababa, managed by senior faculty member on
  3-5yr tenure, relies on volunteers, with
  permanent staff of 1, plus various admin

15
Languages

• c.2000 indigenous languages in Africa
• Some have no written form
• Kiswahili has gt80million speakers (E Africa),
  written manuscripts since 1000 AD
• But it is frequently seen as a market language
  government, culture and education remain in the
  European tongues
• Most education is in the language of the
  coloniser
• French, Spanish, French
• Variable fluency in these languages
• Very small markets or publication in native
  languages

16
Publishing networks

• APNET African Publishers Network
• Formed in 1992
• Provided training for publishers
• Now, sadly, pretty much inactive
• Zimbabwe International book fair
• Annual since 1983, but reduced to provincial
  event, and now to be replaced by annual event in
  Cape Town (South Africa) in partnership with
  Frankfurt

17
University publishing education

• Three university courses
• Moi University (Kenya) (within the school of
  Information Sciences, and includes librarianship,
  info.science, archives, records management and
  publishing)
• KNUST (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and
  Technology), Kumasi, Ghana
• University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg,
  South Africa

18
Book publishing solutions

• Co-publication
• e.g. James Currey
• Out-of-Africa distribution
• African Books Collective
• African Books Centre
• Technology
• POD

19
Breakout

• What are the benefits and pitfalls of these three
  solutions
• What other solutions are there for book
  publishing in Africa?

20
Journals
21
Output of national research in international
journals
22
Output of national research in international
journals ()
23
African journals - Indexing

• The Library of Congress Nairobi office catalogues
  c.300 serial publications (mostly scholarly)
• Index to South African Periodicals includes 680
  titles (250 recognised by the Academy of Science
  of South Africa)

24
Journal titles

• Oldest titles include
• South African Medical Journal, 1884
• South African Law Journal 1884
• East African Medical Journal, 1923
• Most titles launched in 1970s/1980s
• Large incidence of volume1-issue1 syndrome

25
Journal publishing problems

• Lack of publishers
• Most journals are self-published
• Editors frequently required to manage all
  publishing processes
• Little awareness of publishing developments
• Poor financial sustainability
• Most owned by association/university, but little
  financial support
• Lack of promotion, sales, financial systems

26
More journal publishing problems

• Poor editorial content
• Authors unskilled in writing or publishing
• Unethical behaviour
• Low submission rates
• Difficult peer reviewing (few peers, lack of
  knowledge about reviewing methodology,
  corruption, cultural issues)
• Lack of online publishing
• Majority of journals in print only
• Majority of readers want/need print

27
Supporting national publishing

• Small number of programmes
• More programmes devoted to getting Western
  information into developing countries
• PERI, HINARI, AGORA, OARE
• www.inasp.info/peri
• www.who.int/hinari/en/
• www.aginternetwork.org/
• www.oaresciences.org/

28
Supporting National publishing

• Increasing emphasis to include content in health
  indexes
• Medline keen to include African Journals,
  actively encouraging submission
• However technical problems due to need for XML
  submission
• Re-launch of African Index Medicus (supported by
  World Health Organization WHO)
• Regional indexes, such as the Index Medicus for
  the Eastern Mediterranean region (WHO)

29
Journal partnerships

• Partnerships
• Africa Health Journals Partnership Project
• funded by the US National Institutes of Health,
  Fogarty Institute
• Twinned high-impact African journals to high
  profile Northern journals (e.g. African Health
  Science to the BMJ)
• Provides some financial support for equipment,
  and digitisation
• Provides some support for training and study
  tours
• ALPSP partnership programme
• ALPSP Membership for publishers in LDCs paid by
  existing northern members

30
Publishing skills

• Training workshops
• Editorial
• Few supported by HINARI, WHO and the Partnership
  project
• Publishing skills
• INASP supported 17 workshops since 2000
• Study tours
• Usually short, 2-week visits
• Oxford Brookes
• Scholarships for developing country students

31
Online publishing

• Support for online publishing
• Websites to host journals e.g.
• Bioline - www.bioline.org.br
• African Journals OnLine - www.ajol.info
• Software
• Open Journals System (http//pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/)
• Submission/reviewing/tracking/publishing system
• Open source software for downloading/using
• Software/online services
• Index Copernicus (www.indexcopernicus.com/)
• Submission/reviewing/tracking/publishing system
• Website to host/manage journals

32
In-country support for scholarly publishing

• Many national research associations and
  governments take no direct action on scholarly
  publishing
• ASSAf have published a paper on the publishing
  strategy to be endorsed by the SA Government
• Association of African Universities (AAU)
  supported a programme called DATAD (Database of
  theses and Dissertations), to capture grey
  literature from 11 organisations in 10 countries,
  to create an online database

33
Sources of information

• INASP (International Network for the Availability
  of Scientific Information) www.inasp.info
• APNET - http//www.apnet.org/home.html
• African Scholarly Publishing Essays (2007) Edited
  by A Mlambo, published by African Books
  Collective - http//www.africanbookscollective.com
  /
• The Book Chain in Africa (2002) Compiled and
  edited by Roger Stringer, published by INASP -
  http//www.inasp.info/pubs/index.shtml
• Notice about the Africa Health Journals
  Partnership Project - http//www.ehponline.org/doc
  s/2005/113-7/niehsnews.html
• Third World Academy of Science -
  http//wwww.twas.org/
• SciDevNet -http//www.scidev.net/ - science
  journalism

34
Sources of information

• UNESCO Institute for Statistics -
  www.uis.unesco.org/
• Report on a Strategic Approach to Research
  Publishing in South Africa published by the
  Academy of Science of South Africa -
  http//www.assaf.co.za/strat_report.html
• Oforei-Adjei, D. et al. (2006) Have Online
  International Medical Journals Made Local
  Journals Obsolete PLoS Medicine 3 (8)
• Smart, P., Pearce, C., Tonukari, J. (2004)
  E-publishing in Developing Economies. Canadian
  Journal of Communication Online, 29(3).
  http//www.cjc-online.ca/viewarticle.php?id837
• Nwagwu, W. (2005) Deficits in the visibility of
  African scientists implications for developing
  information and communication technology (ICT)
  capacity. World Review of Science, Technology and
  Sustainable Development Vol. 2, No.3/4.
• Priestley, C. (2000) Book and Publishing
  Assistance Programs A review and Inventory.
  Revised Edition. Bellagio Studies in Publishing,
  no. 11.