Books for an Open Society - Experts' View

Abstract

Evaluation of the academic literature publishing in Lithuania was twofold. Some of the experts
estimated situation as critical, others stressed the obvious improvement in the field of academic
publishing. Skeptics appealed to the state authorities, which do not have clear policy of academic
publishing and moreover, do not give support to it. Optimists enjoyed newly published books and
doubted ability of the state authorities to coordinate academic publishing. Intellectual and academic
discourses are constructed from the local knowledge and the totality of it cannot be grasped
from one generalizing point. But experts agreed that limited resources determine the need of clear
priorities in academic publishing.
The publishing of the intellectual and academic literature face different problems that come
from its specific conditions. An academic book is more expensive because its number of copies
and circulation is smaller. The reader of an academic book is more educated, knows foreign
languages and this limits the market of academic translations. Academic field is specialized and
it requires very different and special texts. Academic texts, this is based on the special traits of
academic field, have longer period of consumption and this also causes additional finance problems
for publishers.
All experts agreed that Programme The Books for an Open Society is very important for
academic publishing and helps solving the problems that it faces nowadays. The Programme helped
publishers of academic, non-commercial literature to begin their work.
Experts thought that main target reader of the Programme The Books for an Open Society
books is contemporary and future intellectual elite. But academic, intellectual society is very
fragmented and differs by academic disciplines and degree of socialization into academic community,
etc. Moreover, big part of potential readers of Programme book has rather narrow specialization
and "lives" in its own professional "cell". At the same time, there is competition between
academic groups that causes marketing problems for publishers. But younger generation of
academic community is more mass consumer of academic literature.
Experts agree that the Programme The Books for an Open Society reflects general tendencies
in social and humanitarian sciences, but stressed that there are factors that influence this reflection.
These factors are ideological priorities of the Programme, more attention to Anglo-Saxon tradition,
not equal sympathy for different academic disciplines. Experts also stressed that publishing of nonfiction
translations always will be retarded because only the books that are already recognized in
Western academic community are selected for translation and publishing. Further discussion proved
that Programme The Books for an Open Society is an organic part of Lithuania's academic field
and at the same time reflects all its subtleties.
Discussion of experts about the quality of the Programme's books concentrated on the quality
of translations. Discussion demonstrated that there is a non-cooperational relationship between
publishers and editors on the one side and translators on the other and this situation inevitably
influences the quality of the published book. It came out, that the Programme did not find a way
out of this problematic situation. Pilot translations as such could not change the situation and
they often remained only a way to control. But experts recognized that the publishing activities
of the Programme The Books for an Open Society and Open Society Fund-Lithuania in general
were very important in raising good new translators.
Experts mentioned following shortages of the Programme The Books for an Open Society:
(1) The Programme by being ideologically engaged, inevitably supported only some of academic
tendencies; (2) The Programme could have supported original Lithuanian books and textbooks.
This could enrich the academic discourse already opened by translations; (3) Experts noticed that
the Programme favours some academic disciplines at the cost of others; (4) Experts thought that
the Programme also favours fundamental academic publications at the cost of more ephemeral but
popular academic books; (5) Some facts from books publishing proves that criteria used in selecting
books for publishing under the Programme title are not clear enough.
Experts also discussed the possible reasons that caused mentioned shortcomings of the
programme, especially the quality of translations. One of reasons was that institutional resources
of publishing houses during the accomplishment of the Programme were not enough to realize the
possibilities which have appeared when OSF-L publishing programmes (The Books for an Open
Society and publishing activities of the Programme Education for the Future of Lithuania) have
joined the publishing market of Lithuania. The lack of institutional resources for the effective
use of the new financial possibilities sometimes has negatively influenced the quality of the
published books.
Experts recommend to pay more attention to the publishing of dictionaries of social sciences
and humanities – more summarizing, synthesizing books, which would represent achievements not
only of Anglo-Saxon tradition. Proportions between published books of different academic disciplines
are to be followed more precisely. Especially in publishing dictionaries, new technologies
could be used more often (CD-ROM etc.).