Review in The African Book Publishing Record, vol. 33, no. 2 (2007): 106-108
and also in
Africana Libraries Newsletter no. 120 (May 2007)
http://www.indiana.edu/~libsalc/african/ALN%20120/alnbookrvw.html
Alois Mlambo, ed. African Scholarly Publishing Essays. Oxford: African
Books Collective Ltd.; Uppsala: Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation; and
Oxford: International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications
(INASP), 2006. 273 pp. £29.95/$39.95 pap.
ISBN-10 1904855830 ISBN-13 9781904855835
By Hans M. Zell, Hans Zell Publishing, Lochcarron, Scotland
This volume grew out of a seminar on scholarly publishing held in Arusha,
Tanzania in 2002. It was originally announced for publication as The
African Scholarly Writers and Publishers Handbook, as a sequel to the
much acclaimed African Writers’ Handbook, published by African Books
Collective (ABC) in 1999, and was billed to contain a series of essays by
African academics writing about their experience in getting published and
their relations with publishers, together with a variety of resource
materials and practical information for academic writers.
The book has now finally appeared, over four years after the seminar,
with the title African Scholarly Publishing Essays, but as the title suggests
has now been recast primarily as a collection of essays by book
practitioners and a number of African academics. The preface to the
volume offers no explanation why the original handbook concept was
abandoned, although the essay collection does contain a few more
practical papers such as Alois Mlambo’s “Choosing a Publisher”, Mary
Jay’s “The Book Publishing Process”, and Charles Bewlay’s “A Publisher’s
Expectations of Academic Authors”. Also useful, published as an appendix
in the book, is a reprint of CODESRIA’s Guide for Authors, a small booklet
published by them in 2003 that contains a great deal of helpful guidance
as well as a glossary. However, it is a pity that a more practical handbook
– similar in content as that published earlier as a resource for African
writers – did not materialize, as a handbook of this nature for African
scholars is probably still very much needed, in particular to aid young
African scholars who seek to have their work published and break into
print.
Having said this, the essay collection offers a rich resource on many
aspects of African scholarly publishing today and takes stock of the
current status of academic publishing on the continent. It contains a total
of 25 papers, and includes an index.
It starts off with Walter Bgoya’s perceptive introductory essay “Scholarly
Publishing in Africa: An Overview”, although it also contains a number of
startling claims; for example, in asserting that “the international book
market place is only marginally interested in African books”, Bgoya says
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the predominant attitude of the European and American book trades from buyers to
booksellers to librarians is at best to disregard African intellectuals’ input and at
worst to deny any place in international knowledge production to Africa and the
Africans.
I believe many Africana librarians, for one, would take issue with this
claim, and professional groups such as the Africana Librarians Council in
the US or SCOLMA in the UK have for long been strong supporters of
indigenous African publishing. Bgoya’s statement is also irreconcilable
with the considerable success African Books Collective (the publishers of
this collection) has enjoyed, for almost two decades now, in getting
thousands of African-published books, from a very large number of African
publishers, on to the shelves of academic and public libraries in many
parts of the world. ABC has also have also enjoyed, albeit to a limited
extent, a measure of success in getting a number of major booksellers in
the countries of the North to stock ABC-distributed titles, and have
persuaded some international library suppliers to include African-published
titles in approval programmes.
The fact is of course that the international market place is only
“marginally interested” in the publishing output from a very large number
of countries, not only books originating from Africa, as this writer knows
only too well from his own publishing experience.
In his introductory essay Bgoya goes on to say
It is indicative of the pervasiveness of this attitude that even when books by African
academics are published by western publishing houses, they are mostly ignored; as
is evident by the extent of reviews and citations by fellow academics, which is
decidedly lower than would be the case if those books were by American or
European scholars; or to call a spade a spade, if they were white.
This seems to me another contentious claim. Many ABC-distributed
scholarly titles have been reviewed in leading African studies journals, and
on the basis of my own experience as a former publisher of scholarly
monographs by African authors, I find this claim quite unsubstantiated.
Moreover, anyone conducting a few minutes of research using Google
Scholar can easily find out that the work of a very large number of African
scholars is cited widely, and in some of the top journals and other
publications. (See also “Using Google Scholar for African Studies
Research”, Africana Libraries Newsletter no. 118, May 2006
www.indiana.edu/~libsalc/african/googlescholar.html)
One has to agree with Bgoya, however, when he states that “at another
level the low priority given by African governments to their universities
does a great deal of harm to their reputation as centres of higher
learning”, and that the state of many African universities is abysmal, with
poor facilities for research, and grossly inadequate and sometime totally
outdated library resources, which contributes significantly to marginalize
Africa-based scholars, and which hardly encourages home-grown scholarly
productions. This is frequently also one of the reasons why many of the
younger scholars can find it difficult to place their work in international
journals.
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This issue is also taken up by the Zimbabwean scholar Alois Mlambo in his
paper “The Case for Publishing African Scholarship in Africa”. However, it
seems unnecessarily negative and opens with this statement
Over the past two decades, channels for publishing African scholarship in Africa
have declined considerably. Consequently, African scholarship either remains
unpublished or is published in the North.
This is another sweeping assertion. Just examining the publishing lists of
some of the many African publishers distributed by ABC will show that a
very wide and diverse range of African scholarship has been published in
recent years. Moreover, African journals, although still facing considerable
obstacles, currently seem to be enjoying a period of resurgence, with a
number of exciting new literary, cultural and scholarly journals
commencing publication over the last two or three years, for example in
Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, and in Uganda. Additionally, many of these
journals now receive much wider international attention and dissemination
through initiatives such as the African Journals Online (AJOL) project
http://www.ajol.info/, or are made available online through other
collaborative national and international projects – some of which are
described in another paper in the collection, “Journal Publishing in Africa”
by Janet Hussein and Pippa Smart – which has dramatically increased
access to journals both within Africa and externally, and has significantly
broadened the use of African scholarship. Halfway through his article
Mlambo concedes that “the publication of scholarly research in Africa has
not been entirely non-existent” and mentions the work of the Dakar-based
Council for the Development of Social Science Research (CODESRIA) as
an example. Indeed, the fact is that CODESRIA has over the years
published a most impressive array of scholarly work, in both book and
journals formats, attracting authors from all over Africa and the diaspora.
CODESRIA’s major contribution to scholarly publishing on the continent,
and its vital role in the dissemination of African scholarship, is described in
a further paper in the collection, “CODESRIA: Over 30 Years of Scholarly
Publishing”, by Adebayo Olukoshi and Francis B. Nyamnjoh.
Veteran Kenyan publisher Henry Chakava traces the decline of academic
publishing in the East African region in his paper “Scholarly Publishing in
Africa: the Perspective of an East African Commercial and Textbook
Publisher.” Using Kenya as a case study, he explains how the decline has
come about, with most university libraries and university bookshops
currently in a state of decay, unable to perform their traditional services
to students and faculty. Chakava sees partnerships between university
presses at the national or regional levels – possibly also involving
partnerships with private sector publishers – as the only viable way
forward to strengthen scholarly publishing on the continent.
In his interesting paper “African Scholarly Network Press. A Co-publishing
Model”, James Currey, the well-known African studies publisher, sets out
a possible model how a network of African academic publishers, and/or a
consortium of academic institutions – using the benefits of new
technologies such as digital printing, and relying primarily on freelancers
for editing, composition and proofreading – might be able to publish and
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disseminate work not only of the highest standards of scholarship, but
also with the highest standards of editing and production. The proposed
African Scholarly Network Press, which would only disseminate
electronically, would (1) select work by peer group review, (2) find
funding for pre-press editorial and typographical origination, (3) distribute
by electronic means, and (4) put the books into the public domain.
Although the practicalities of setting up a consortium of this nature might
well be considerable, this is something that merits further investigation.
Unfortunately, over four years after the Arusha conference, there are no
signs that anyone has taken this a step further.
African Books Collective has successfully pioneered the use of, and access
to, new printing technology such as print-on-demand (POD), and it is
appropriate that the book includes a section on new technologies. Mary
Jay describes the ABC experience in digital printing and the benefits it has
brought to participating publishers, while Brian Wafawarowa makes a
compelling case for increased use of POD to boost African publishing, and
to enable publishers to deliver their books more effectively and efficiently
to Northern markets. Another contribution, “Publishing through ICTs for
Social Justice in Africa”, comes from Firoze Manji of the not-for-profit
organization Fahamu http://www.fahamu.org/, which has developed a
series of extremely useful interactive electronic course materials. Fahamu
are also the publishers of Pambazuka News, an electronic newsletter
covering news, commentary, analysis and a range of other resources on
human rights and development in Africa, which currently reaches a
readership of more than 70,000 people every week, most of them in
Africa.
A further article in the section on new technologies, “Opportunities for
Electronic Publishing in Africa”, by L.O. Aina and Stephen M. Mutula of the
Department of Library and Information Studies at the University of
Botswana, examines the present state of electronic publishing in Africa. At
this time this is mostly confined to journal publishing, but the authors
believe “it is possible that if attractive electronic business models are
developed and Internet infrastructure improved, [book] publishers will be
enticed into electronic publishing to capture a potentially lucrative
market.” However, they offer no suggestions what kind of product this
might be. Attractive business models are all very well, but the issue of
content development for commercial exploitation still needs to be
addressed much more thoroughly. For example is it information-rich
digital libraries and archives of scholarly resources, databases of
indigenous knowledge, digital collections of photographic images and
objects, or sound archives, that might be offered, and which might be
something that could provide significant revenue streams for African
publishers? Before venturing into such uncharted territory, publishers will
also need to bear in mind that any electronic products they might be
offering on a commercial basis might well be competing with several
digital archives and projects that already exist, are freely accessible, and
are generously supported by institutional or donor funding. Examples
include Aluka http://www.aluka.org/, the Digital Imaging Project South
Africa (DISA) http://disa.nu.ac.za/, or the Contemporary Music and Arts
Archive (CAMA) http://www.cama.org.za/index.htm, a multi-media
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documentary initiative for African arts and culture, based in the Faculty of
Science and the Montebello Design Centre at the University of Cape Town.
Other papers and topics addressed in the collection include “Writing,
Publishing and Distributing Feminist Research in Africa: the Senegalese
Experience” by Fatou Sow, “Why Do African Readers Want Indigenous
Publications?” by Kingo Mchombu, science and agricultural publishing on
the continent, African language publishing, and there is a also contribution
by Fredric Bohm (Director of Michigan State University Press, which
markets and distributes ABC books in North America) on “The North
American Distribution and Selling of Books”, in which he provides some
helpful tips and advice how small or mid-sized publishers outside the US
might penetrate the North American book markets—a challenge of some
magnitude.
The assertions made in a number of the papers in this collection perhaps
contain rather too many generalizations or make sweeping statements of
the kind described above; and some also recite the well-rehearsed
problems seen as the main contributory factors for the difficulties faced by
indigenous African publishers, e.g. lack of access to capital, the weak
economic base of independent publishing houses, or Western domination
of publishing. It is true of course that many formidable obstacles remain,
including poor communications and distribution infrastructures, constantly
declining African currencies, the dominance by multinationals (certainly
still true in francophone Africa), the lack of coherent national book policies
and, above all perhaps, the failure by successive African governments to
provide positive support for their book industries. Nonetheless, and as is
rightly pointed out in the Publishers’ Preface, “whilst a few years ago it
was not far-fetched to describe African publishing as extremely
underdeveloped; it is not a true picture now. Gains have been made, and
collective efforts continue to build capacity.” There have been setbacks
too of course, but it is vital to build on these gains.
Many attempts at collaborative publishing initiatives in Africa have failed,
or have collapsed as soon as initial donor support came to an end.
However, collaborative ventures, co-publishing projects, and partnerships
at national, regional, and continental level surely are the key: pooling
editorial and management expertise, sharing production costs and
consolidating strength in production skills, jointly exploiting the benefits of
new digital printing technology, and sharing marketing and distribution
know-how. As South African publisher Brian Wafawarowa has recently put
it when speaking at the Cape Town Book Fair in June of 2006 – when he
argued that the successful development of indigenous publishing in Africa
is possible if only publishers worked more closely together – “we must
stop moaning and ask what we can do ourselves".1
Meantime, this book should be an essential acquisition for libraries with
African studies and media collections, schools of library and information
science, centres of the book worldwide, and all those who share an
interest and concern in the educational and cultural development of the
continent, and a vibrant and independent African publishing industry.
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Note:
1
Cape Town Book Fair 2006, press release
http://www.capetownbookfair.com/pressmedia-article-4.php
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