“Publishers are the catalysts of societal change. Through what we publish, we can not only influence agendas around sustainability today, but also in the many years to come,” says Michiel Kolman of Elsevier and IPA.
By providing children with diverse books, we open up the world to them and encourage their wonder and awe. And we show kids that diversity is the nature of humanity.
Forget what you learned about the origin of printing. Movable type using Chinese porcelain pegs was invented by Bi Sheng in 1040, four centuries before Gutenberg and his press. And where there is printing, there is copyright, too. So, yes, you can also forget that other myth, the one that says China and copyright are incompatible.
A ranking of top players in publishing isn’t only a numbers game. Assessing the current state of the market in the middle of a pandemic and in the throes of digital transformation requires complex calculations far beyond spreadsheets.
The surprises from COVID-19 aren’t always unwelcome ones. The arrival of effective vaccines is one such miracle. The good health of the publishing industry is yet another – at least for now.
The value of a bookstore is going to the bookstore. To change from that model to an online business model means staff and other business changes that place independent booksellers in direct competition with Amazon.
“The global publishing sector has suffered enormously from the ramifications of this pandemic,” says Bodour Al Qasimi.“This sudden disruption forced the publishing community worldwide to do some serious soul-searching.”
In this third episode of a three-part review for 2020, three takes on information that illuminate the golden rule: sources matter – and the more, the better.
