KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has to publish 27,000 book titles for general reading annually to become a knowledgeable, developed nation and be on par with other developed countries, Malaysian Book Contractors Association president Hasan Hamzah said.He said that in countries like Japan, South Korea, Denmark, Sweden and Germany, the ratio was 1,000 book titles to one million population.
“Hence, Malaysia has to publish 27,000 book titles for its 27 million population a year, ” he said, adding that such an effort would require an allocation of about RM300mil.
Hasan said Malaysia currently published only 10,000 book titles every year, which is still very far behind from that in other developed countries.
Most of the books found in Malaysia were imported ones, despite the country having many local intellectuals, including about 350,000 teachers and more than 40,000 lecturers or professors, who were capable of producing books for general reading, he added.
However, he said it was not because there were not many locally-published books that reading was not a habit among Malaysians.
“Actually, our society loves knowledge and they like to read. It is because the books are expensive to buy,” he added.
Hasan said that for a book to be sold cheap, a publisher had to print at least 3,000 copies for each book title a year.
There would be an increase in demand for general books with support from the government through provision of special allocations for publication of books for general reading, he added. -- Bernama
tunku : that is why the government introduced the PPSMI so that we won't be left out when it comes to science and mathematics. we don't have enough books in Malay language. when some new book comes out, it take 1-2 years to translate it to Malay language.Some of it can't be translated at all. we hope the government will think it thoroughly about the PPSMI, think of the future generation not only those few who thinks that PPSMI will put Bahasa Malaysia as second class.these people got nothing to lose but our future generation surely will.
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4 comments:
orang ini bercakap tentang lebih banyak buku patut diterbitkan dan dia sendiri adalah presiden persatuan pengedar-pengedar buku malaysia... perasan tak, sesuatu yang fishy dalam kenyataannya?
kenyataannya ialah sokongan kepada ruang yang lebih besar perlu diberikan kepada buku-buku dari luar untuk diedarkan dan disimpan di Tanah Melayu... tidak salah, malah sangat digalakkan tapi bukan dari konteks membela nasib penerbit-penerbit tempatan, baik yang Melayunya mahupun bukan Melayu. Terutama apabila membicarakan perihal open-market dan close-market.
Seperkara yang pasti ialah kesukaran masyarakat kita untuk berubah menjadi masyarakat yang berbudayakan pembacaan. Walau keluar berjuta judul sekalipun, kalau masyarakat kita tidak gemar membaca, industri buku tetap akan ranap... seperti sekarang....
Sepatutnya bukan cadangan memperbanyakkan judul buku dibuat tapi sebenarnya perlukan lebih banyak usaha untuk menimbulkan kesedaran, selain makan nasi, baca buku juga sangat penting dalam hidup manusia di Tanah Melayu ini!
I hope more books would mean cheaper books. Books in Malaysia is still expensive compared to, say Indonesia or India.
Make it a condition for graduation.Graduates must produce at least one original works between 100 and 150 A4 double spacing pages before they can graduate. Some of the works surely will have the quality for publishing. Suddenly we will have too many books.With desk top publishing books should be cheaper. But in Malaysia books are too expensive in relation to our mean income. The new PM has his hands full.Everything he looks at will be priority.Ramalx
Hi,
How to publish books?
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