ICAS_PIA_krant 09-07-2007 19:35 Pagina 8

8 Publishing in Asian Studies

Academic Publishing in Southeast Asia

by Paul H. Kratoska, per year, although Vietnam National national language. The markets for table 1 Singapore University Press University Ho Chi Minh City puts out books in English and books in vernacu- Southeast Asian universities that support academic presses [email protected] around 280 new titles annually. The lar languages are quite different, with large number of students attending uni- the latter relying heavily on a domestic Country University niversity and other academic pub- versities across the region create a large market, while books in English sell to Brunei Universiti Brunei Darussalam Ulishers are found across Asia, and potential market for academic books local English-speaking elites, and to an Indonesia Gadjah Mada University account for a significant output of books (VNU-HCM, for example, has 57,000 international audience. Catering to these Universitas Indonesia each year. Most major universities sup- full- and part-time students), but stu- two distinct markets is a major chal- Malaysia University of Malaya port a publishing programme as part of dents rely heavily on photocopying to lenge for publishers. Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia their educational function. Some of the acquire course reading materials, and Philippines University of the Philippines universities that support academic press- efforts to encourage the purchase of Although University presses receive Ateneo de Manila University es in Southeast Asia are shown in the books in connection with courses have support from their parent institutions, De La Salle University accompanying table. Other universities had only limited success. the resources set aside for this purpose University of Santa Tomas have at least small publishing pro- are always limited, and finances are an Singapore National University of Singapore grammes, but the institutions on this list A majority of the publications issued by ongoing problem. Moreover, books Thailand Chulalongkorn University account for the majority of academic university presses in the region are in published in Western countries are Thammasat University titles published in the region (see table 1). national languages. Singapore Univer- often given greater weight in promo- Vietnam Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City In addition, a significant number of pri- sity Press publishes exclusively in Eng- tion and tenure exercises than those vate publishers and research institutes lish, and the university presses in the published locally, making it difficult for publish academic material (see table 2). Philippines produce a substantial num- regional presses to attract top-class table 2 ber of English titles. University presses manuscripts. Some university presses Academic publishers that are not university based Most university presses in Southeast in Malaysia also publish in English, but rely on textbook sales to bolster their Asia publish between 20 and 40 titles the greater part of their output is in the income, and some offer a significant Country Publisher range of trade publications, semi-aca- Brunei Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (Brunei) demic works that appeal to the general Indonesia LP3ES reading public. But all university press- Gramedia es see the academic monograph as the Gunung Agung basis of their publishing endeavors, KITLV Press and in Asia as elsewhere the mono- Malaysia Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka graph is facing a crisis. Pelandok Myanmar Ministry of Education (Myanmar Academy of Arts and The market for academic works is lim- Science, Myanmar Historical Commission, Myanmar ited. Although some countries within Historical Research Centre, SEAMEO-CHAT/Centre for Southeast Asia have very high rates of History and Tradition) literacy (for instance, around 94% of Philippines Institute of Philippine Culture (Ateneo de Manila) adult Filipinos are literate and 68% of New Day the population reports reading non- Third World Studies Center (University of the Philippines) school books), the region lacks a tradi- Singapore Institute of Southeast Asian Studies tion of book buying, and relatively few Thailand Silkworm people establish home libraries. White Lotus Vietnam The Gioi Publishers Publication costs for academic books are EFEO rising. As recently as 30 years ago, major academic publishers in the United States accepted almost any manuscript bookshops selling anything other than the profit margins of small publishers, deemed to be of good quality, and could school textbooks. Conventional wisdom including university presses. count on selling 8-900 copies to held that bookshops could not be suc- libraries. Print runs averaged around cessful because the market for books The future for academic publishing in 2000-2500 copies. Today, library sales was too small. Over the past decade Southeast Asia, as in other parts of the are limited to 150-200 copies. Universi- retailers such as Borders and Kinoku- world, almost certainly includes ty presses in Southeast Asia have never niya have enjoyed considerable success increased use of electronic resources. had the luxury of library sales on this in the region with huge bookshops There are advantages to this arrange- level within the region. English-lan- stocking tens of thousands of titles, and ment, as an e-press is able to offer mate- guage books sometimes are sold to insti- local retailers such as MPH in Malaysia, rials such as video clips or color photo- tutions outside the region, but the costs Gunung Agung and Gramedia in graphs that could not be included in associated with worldwide marketing Indonesia, and National Bookstore in printed books. Singapore University are high, and the returns limited. the Philippines, have followed the same Press, for example, has made available model. To the extent that these book- as an online open access resource Geoff Historically, the number of retail outlets shops have promoted a reading culture, Wade’s translation of Southeast Asia in for serious books was very small in the development has been positive, but the Ming Shi-lu, a massive work that Southeast Asia, and there were major the near monopolies enjoyed by these would have been prohibitively expensive cities where it was difficult to locate retailers have allowed them to squeeze to publish in conventional book form (available at www.epress.nus.edu.sg/ Sources msl/). However, universities continue to Information in this article is drawn primarily from submissions made at a symposium on academic pub- depend on print monographs as a key lishing in Southeast Asia held in Manila in July 2004, sponsored by SEASREP with support from the Toy- element in their credentialing process ota Foundation, and from the Presidential Panel on University Press Publishing at the 2005 meeting of for academic staff in a number of aca- the US Association for Asian Studies held in Chicago. The Manila meeting was attended by representa- demic disciplines, and many readers tives from university publishers at the following institutions: Universiti Brunei Darussalam, the Univer- still prefer to read conventional books sity of the Philippines, Gadjah Mada University, Universitas Indonesia, the National University of Singa- rather than text presented on a comput- pore, the University of Malaya, University Kebangsaan Malaysia, and Vietnam National University Ho Chi er screen. The challenge for university Minh City. The Chicago panel included presentations from the University of California Press, Columbia presses is to find the financial resources University Press, the University of Chicago Press, and the University of Washington Press. to meet this demand.