In the educational sector, a growing concern is the interference by government in the production of learning materials.The IPA’s Educational Publishers Forum is monitoring the rising trend of educational authorities aiming to produce one authorized book per subject per student.This is not only an impediment to the freedom to publish of educational publishers who could produce a number of competing textbooks in any given subject area; it is also a grave threat to the free exchange of ideas.The best-performing education systems around the world, by and large, encourage educational publishers to compete in an open market, producing innovative solutions that meet local needs.This new trend of government interference, however, not only robs students and teachers of the opportunity of learning from the best-possible resources, it also creates a state monopoly in the production, dissemination and accreditation of certain ideas and interpretations of history. Such a situation is inherently dangerous, authoritarian and susceptible to corruption.The IPA’s Freedom to Publish Committee is working with the Educational Publishers Forum to monitor and respond to this worrying trend.
Another common challenge to publishers in all countries is the question of self-censorship. Even in countries with few regulations on freedom to publish, publishers might have to consider the negative consequences of producing and distributing certain content. Prime
examples of this are the draconian libel or criminal defamation laws in some countries which take no account of the public interest when a critical statement is made about people or even corporations, and instead place an extraordinary legal burden on authors or publishers. Similarly, a growing number of jurisdictions are punishing whistle-blowers and investigative journalists who expose malpractice, corruption or official incompetence, when the public interest is more clearly served by the protection of these writers and their publishers. In this way, the same fears that affect publishers and lead them to self-censor can also infect authors, booksellers and librarians. In the end, if these fears delay or stop the creation or publication of such reports and works, then it is we the readers who are deprived.
The IPA is currently working on a policy position that addresses such laws. It is important that the publishing community, all over the world, stands together and supports the necessity of challenging all laws and actions that prevent the publication of work or information for other than very strict reasons of public safety—and those reasons must be constantly questioned and scrutinized.
In the IPA, it is the task of the Freedom to Publish Committee to manage the association’s work in this field by implementing programmes and activities in partnership with IPA members and other national and international organizations.
The IPA’s Freedom to Publish Committee does this by: First. Helping Our Members Fight for the Freedom to Publish We support our members through legal advice and direct lobbying when laws that threaten freedom to publish are proposed by governments or other agents.We do this in concert with an extensive network of international non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
Second. Challenging Violations of Freedom to Publish We raise the alarm when publishers and writers are in danger and we support them when they face wrongful prosecution.We liaise with global fora, such as relevant United Nations agencies, to ensure that the
collective voice of publishers resonates in the free speech arena. Third. Driving Dialogue on Freedom to Publish
We lead or support international engagements and conferences to raise the visibility of freedom to publish and foster a continuous international conversation about this underappreciated area of free-speech advocacy. We coordinate our lobbying efforts with an extensive network of NGOs and the media.
Fourth. Celebrating the Champions of Freedom to Publish We award the annual IPA Prix Voltaire, which honours and celebrates the courage of publishers who defy their would-be silencers and enable writers to exercise their own freedom of expression—a freedom that is enshrined in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For more than a decade, the IPA’s Prix Voltaire and its predecessor, the ‘Freedom to Publish Prize’, have honoured brave individuals and publishing companies from all over the world: from Turkey,Vietnam, and Russia to Iran, South Africa, Belorussia, and Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, and despite our best efforts, the nominations for the prize keep arriving every year—a testament to the dire situation that too many publishers find themselves in.
The championing of the freedom to publish is no easy assignment but there is no alternative—and to stop now would be a betrayal of this founding principle of the IPA. Ultimately, to succeed in consolidating freedom to publish around the globe we will need international cooperation as well as support from many individuals and organizations. The bravery of our colleagues, who regularly stand up against intimidation, legal threats and physical harassment, inspires the IPA to redouble its efforts every year.
josé borghino is Secretary General of the
International Publishers Association (IPA). He joined the IPA as Policy Director in 2013 and was appointed to his current role in 2015. He came to the IPA from the Australian Publishers Association where he served as Manager of Industry Representation. His previous professional roles include teaching journalism and creative industries at the University of Sydney, Executive Director of the Australian Society of Authors, and senior positions at the Literature Board of the Australia Council.
kristenn einarsson has been Chairman, IPA Freedom to Publish Committee, since 2016. His other roles include: CEO, Norwegian Publishers Association; President, Bjørnson Academy (The Norwegian Academy for Literature and Freedom to Speech); Board Member, Norwegian Literature Abroad; Chairman, RiksTV; and Chairman, Norges Televisjon. He was CEO of Norwegian Book Clubs from 1991 to 2010, Chairman of the Kunnskapsforlaget publishing house during 2000-08, and
Managing Director of Kunnskapsforlaget during 2008-10.
30 PuBlIC lIBrarIes anD
lIBrary movements
“Delivering quality joyful reading material to all”
Himanshu Giri Q:What has been the contribution of various public library systems, NGOs and private movements in creating reading space and opportunities? Do give examples.
Himanshu: StoryWeaver, Pratham Books’s online digital repository of multilingual books for children, has enabled a number of organizations to create joyful reading material for children in tribal and minority languages, languages which are often overlooked by mainstream publishers. Suchana, an NGO working in Birbhum,West Bengal, has translated over 60 titles in the Kora and Santali tribal languages on this platform.Ten thousand copies of select books have been printed for distribution through mobile libraries.
In Goa, the Konkani Bhasha Mandal—a pioneering nongovernmental institution striving for the cause of Konkani in the social, educational, literary and cultural spheres—has translated 102 stories in Konkani on StoryWeaver, keenly aware of the fact that children’s literature is a means of ensuring the continued usage of the language. Plans are under way to print the books and distribute them widely across schools and libraries in the state.
In Mumbai,Vibha Kamat, along with two friends, started the MCubed public library. Most of the books are donations that have come by word-of-mouth, and the library has books in English, Hindi and Marathi.There are arts-based activities and engagements that are constantly taking place to attract newer readers.
Q: Do you think there is some revival in the public library system? Himanshu: The Raja Rammohun Roy Library Foundation (RRRLF) was set up in 1972 by the Indian government to support public library services and systems. Currently, this foundation is supporting around 50 per cent of the 70,000 public libraries that exist; however, there is a huge pool waiting to be tapped.To revitalize this movement around public libraries, the Indian Public Library Movement (IPLM) has been created with the support of the Global Libraries initiative of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and hosted by the NASSCOM Foundation.
The idea is to make public libraries prime centres of information that cater to 21st-cen
tury needs of communities.The Delhi Public Library is an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Culture and was started as a UNESCO project in the year 1951 by the Government of India.The library has a network of zonal libraries, branches and sub-branches, R.C. (Resettlement Colony) Libraries, Community Libraries, Deposit Stations, Mobile Libraries, Braille Libraries, etc. spread all over Delhi.There are over 18 lakh books and it is believed to be the busiest library in South Asia. In order to bring more children into public libraries this year, a Summer Fest was also organized for children by the IPLM in partnership with the Delhi Public Library. Spread over a month, a host of activities were designed for children within the walls of the library.
The National Mission on Libraries was set up when the National Knowledge Commission recommended that libraries have to be developed keeping in mind the needs of the time and the power and reach of information science. Given the huge mobile phone penetration in rural India, the National Mission on Libraries plans to provide knowledge related to agriculture, animal husbandry, traditional medicine, and similar subjects in an audio-visual format and have a roadmap for creating a National Virtual Library of India, which will serve as a comprehensive database on digital resources on information about India. Under the mission, the plan is to develop six libraries under the Ministry of Culture, 35 state/central libraries and 35 district libraries, and 629 sub
district libraries across all states will be given Wi-Fi connectivity. The 17000 ft Foundation, based in Ladakh has been working to promote reading in the trans-Himalayan region, by setting up libraries across hundreds of schools in remote areas. Recently, the organization partnered with Pratham Books and Scholastic Publishers to translate 10 of their titles into the local language, Bhoti.Across 300 schools of Ladakh, 40,000 copies of these books were distributed.
Q: Private reading movements have also started in India.Though still in their infancy, they can go a long way in encouraging the reading habit. Please share your views on how this trend can be developed further.
Himanshu: Many bookstores are now becoming hubs of not just books but author interactions, events, and more.They are vital in encouraging the reading habit of children across India. Many of these stores are wellcurated spaces which host a diversity of books—across ages, genres, topics and languages.
Independent bookstores that focus on children’s books are fostering the reading movement. Kahani Tree in Mumbai and Lightroom Bookstore in Bengaluru are warm, inviting spaces that are run by people who understand and care about children’s books. Both bookstores stock independent publishers from across India as well as a range of international books for young bibliophiles. Readers can choose from bilingual books as well as multilingual ones.
Most of the exciting developments are currently happening in big cities. But Walking Bookfairs changed this plot when they ventured into promoting books across Odisha and then India.Another group that is constantly talking about books is the Reading Raccoons group. Started on Facebook, the group now has 15,000+ members—all passionately discussing books, sourcing book recommendations and more.The group also occasionally hosts contests and crowdsources books for libraries in need.
In Arunachal Pradesh, with its difficult terrain and connectivity, the one hope for promoting reading is the school system. Sathyanarayanan Mundayoor, fondly known as Uncle Moosa has set up more than a dozen
libraries, called Bamboosa Libraries, in the villages of Arunachal Pradesh through the Lohit Youth Libraries programme.Volunteers from tribal villages work with reading-deprived children. Books are accessible and kept in open cupboards.
With a nation as diverse as ours, movements and collectives like these can not only increase access to books but provide templates for different types of reading models that can work for varied readers.
Q: Share the various programmes undertaken by Pratham Books for the same.What has been the response?
Himanshu: In 2012, Pratham Books started the ‘One Day, One Story’ event to engage with our growing community.This is an annual nationwide storytelling event that takes place on International Literacy Day.The main aim of this initiative has been to create environments that foster reading and make reading fun.The programme mobilizes a community of volunteers called Pratham Books’ Reading Champions to conduct interactive reading/storytelling sessions in their own communities to spread the joy of reading.These sessions are conducted free of cost and mostly with children from underserved communities. In just six years, the event has grown from 250+ volunteers to 5,700+ volunteers.
Pratham Books’s online repository of multilingual books for children, StoryWeaver, has opened digital vistas for disseminating multilingual books to children in various formats.We have been openly licensing most of our content under the CC–BY 4.0 licence which allows anyone to use, reuse or remix the stories as long as due attribution is given.
In 2015–16, our partner organizations took StoryWeaver into 3,900 classrooms across 22 Indian states and worked with us towards making classrooms more engaging, and libraries more diverse.With more stories to capture their imagination, we believe that many more children will discover the joy of reading.
Users can read, download and even print the stories; they can translate or version them into new languages or even create new stories using the large bank of images.This has helped significantly scale the creation of joyful reading material in mother tongue languages.
StoryWeaver was launched with 800 stories in 24 languages on International Literacy Day 2015.Today, the platform is a digital treasure house of over 6,300+ stories in 100+ languages of the world, many of which have been added at the request of our community.
Schools like Tamarind Tree in Dahanu and partner organisations like Mantra4Change are using StoryWeaver to create digital libraries. These can consist of pen drives pre-loaded with an appropriate selection of free books from StoryWeaver, and many schools and learning centres download and distribute books to build their students’ comprehension skills. For instance, Bohra Bai, a teacher in a Zilla Parishad school in Phaltan, Maharashtra, uses our books by projecting them in her classroom.While she reads the story aloud, she prompts the children to think, predict the next action, and draw connections with their real lives. She uses Marathi stories to build their vocabulary. In Bangalore, Meghshala uses many of our books in ‘teach kits’ that teachers use to complement their lessons for the state syllabus. Several other organizations use our stories as part of assessment tools, lesson plans for teachers, and for English-reading programmes.The circulation of memory cards and pen drives, as well as the existence of a digital infrastructure within schools, has helped us reach more children, in more ways than we imagined.
We do believe that mobile phones and the audio medium can, and must be used to reach more children, especially those who have little or no access to having stories read out to them. Following an extremely successful pilot, we opened the Missed Call Do, Kahaani Suno campaign to everyone in April 2016. All one had to do was give a missed call to a phone number, and would receive a free call back with a Pratham Books story in English or Hindi.At the end of the story, the caller could choose to have the story repeated, or find another story to listen to. Callers also received a free SMS with an online link to the story on StoryWeaver.
Mirchi Cares, the CSR wing of Radio Mirchi, recorded the stories for us, while our cloud telephony partner, Exotel, helped us develop and execute this campaign for two whole days across India. Publicized solely through Pratham Books and StoryWeaver social media platforms,
our phenomenal online community helped spread the word about the campaign far and wide.The Missed Call Do, Kahaani Suno project was also a winner of the Mobile for Good Awards 2016.Through the grant received by Vodafone Foundation, we were able to extend the reach of this campaign to more organizations and regions across the country. In a period of six months, million minutes worth of stories have been consumed and 300,000 stories have been delivered to 50,000 unique children.
Over the years, o
ur innovative and compact classroom library, known as the Library-in-a-Classroom (LIC), has become hugely popular among schools and organizations. Designed in response to the needs of schools and organizations which are, typically, infrastructure- and resource-scarce, the LIC, is literally a library on the wall. It contains over a hundred books for children to enjoy—displayed attractively in a dispenser that can be locked at the end of the school day for safe-keeping.The library adds colour and provides a print-rich environment for children within their classroom itself.
The classroom library model has proven to be a resounding success in getting more books to children across India, even in the remotest of locations.With support from our donors, collaborators and partners, this year, we are happy to have set up 1,280 classroom libraries with 1,54,000 books across 18+ Indian states.
Besides, Pratham Books has also been instrumental in running the outreach component of literature festivals like the Jaipur Literature Festival. During the outreach programme, visiting festival authors, illustrators, and resource people conduct sessions in schools and NGOs in cities where the fest is organized—thus providing young students a chance to meet the people behind the books!
Q:Why are these initiatives important in the context of the wider ‘reading’ trends?
Himanshu: In India, and across many parts of the developing world, there are critical supply shortages in reading resources for children—not enough books, in not enough languages, compounded by poor access and issues of affordability.As most publishers cater to middle- and upper
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