WELCOME REMARKS OF
ATTY. DOMINADOR D. BUHAIN
President, Asia Pacific Publishers Association
To the Round Table Discussants on
GLOBAL PUBLISHING TRENDS
AND LIBRARY COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT IN ASIA PACIFIC
September 15, 2010, 2:00-5:00 PM
Rex Book Store Inc. Library Den
84 P. Florentino St., Sta. Mesa Heights, Quezon City
I am very happy to welcome you this afternoon on behalf of the Asia Pacific Publishers Association (APPA).
I am very happy to welcome the librarians from the Aurora Boulevard Consortium of private academic libraries and their neighbor college libraries along Aurora Blvd. in our city. This round table discussion is for you – to learn how the latest developments in publishing open new vistas and directions in building library collections that take advantage of these sometimes confusing but always exciting developments.
You are the first non-APPA group that I welcome in my capacity as president of this Asia Pacific Publishers Association. I was elected to this position only last August, in Cebu, where the Philippines hosted this large regional grouping of publishers. Since APPA was organized 16 years ago, Japan and South Korea have led the Association until early this year. But last August, when the APPA Annual Meeting was held in Cebu City with the Philippines as host, the member countries of the ASEAN Book Publishers Association (ABPA), who are also members of the APPA, prevailed upon me to take over the leadership of the APPA on their behalf. Perhaps, they felt a need for better integration of ASEAN publishing concerns in the wider Asia Pacific publishing world.
It is very difficult and time-consuming to integrate a wide diversity of races, cultures, languages, and creeds through joint decision making and action toward the realization of their common welfare. The peoples of Southeast Asia have been working at it since at least 1969. We had the advantage of a fairly common racial stock and the disadvantages of insularity of island worlds and different colonial masters. Today, after four decades, the idea of ASEAN integration is readily accepted although economic integration is only beginning.
The idea of a Pan-Pacific world is much more daunting and challenging. The Asia Pacific region is much more varied in races, in creeds, in cultures, in languages, and in history. Geographically, it is much more vast – fully including at least the two continents of Asia and Australia. It is also even more insular and far-flung.
Yet the idea that the Asia Pacific can be integrated as a community much like ASEAN has been conceived. The APPA is slowly working towards it even if just by getting together at least once a year to talk.
This is because globalization is the theme of the 21st century. It is made possible by technological advances for travel and communication. Globalization exerts a tremendous power over access to information and therefore to libraries and to the publishing world – the producers of information.
So it is very appropriate and very fortunate for us this afternoon to be with Mr. Johannes Scherer, Executive Director of the Publishers and Booksellers Association of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany. As a German publisher and bookseller, Mr. Scherer personifies for us two things – globalization and publishing at the most advanced states. His country is a mover in the European Union. After six decades, the EU is by far the most successful integration of sovereign peoples for universal causes. Secondly, 560 years ago Germany gave birth to modern printing; today, Mr. Scherer continues this tradition of publishing leadership by hosting every year the largest international book trade – the Frankfurt Buchmesse.
Mr. Scherer has a lot to share with us. We welcome him most heartily.
So let us all take advantage of Mr. Scherer’s presence and extensive knowledge of the book trade. We have kept your numbers small so that each of you can ask him questions and share your own answers and experiences.