[NEDBIB-L] Seminar about Publishing in Africa

Seminar
African Studies Centre, Leiden

22 May, 15.30-17.00

Publish and still perish:
The challenges facing scholarly publishers in Africa
by Solani Ngobeni, Africa Institute of South Africa
discussant: Jos Damen, Librarian African Studies Centre


Abstract
Africa produces about 2% of world book output while it accounts for
about 12% of book consumption. Of the 2% that it produces, the majority
accounts for what is generally termed as education or school book
publishing. Scholarly publishing in Africa comprises in the region of
0.08% of knowledge production, and even more precarious is the fact that
the greater percentage of this comprises journal articles, which leaves
the scholarly monograph as the 'most endangered species'. This seminar
examines the state of the university press in order to highlight the
role that the press can play not only in pushing the frontiers of
scholarly knowledge production but also to show how a university press
can be an effective ambassador of a university if it is properly
managed. While a university press is par for the course in most of
Europe and the US, the reverse is true in Africa. Even in the most
developed publishing industry in Africa, namely South Africa, the
university press faces numerous challenges, ranging from dwindling
subsidies from the parent university, declining library budgets that are
swinging in favour of serials, an impoverished university community as
well as a small general reading audience. The corporatization and
managerialism that are now so pervasive in the university system have
not spared the university press. To all intents and purposes, given the
precarious state in which the university press finds itself in Africa,
it comes as no surprise that research institutes, and science councils
in the case of South Africa, have taken over the role of scholarly
publisher. While academics the world over are implored to publish or
perish, in Africa this Manichean binary opposite is not always the case
as indeed academics can publish and still perish.

Speaker
Solani Ngobeni is currently the Director of Publications at the Africa
Institute of South Africa where he is responsible for publishing
scholarly monographs, conference proceedings, occasional papers as well
as the peer-reviewed and Department of Higher Education and Training
accredited journal Africa Insight. He has a Masters in publishing from
the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and is now doing a
DPhil in Political Science at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University
in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. His thesis is entitled 'The Politics
and State of Scholarly Publishing in South Africa: The Case of
University Presses, Namely, Witwatersrand University Press, University
of Cape Town Press, University of South Africa Press, University of
Kwazulu-Natal Press and the HSRC Press (2000-2010)'.




Venue: Room SA37, African Studies Centre, Faculty of Social Sciences
Leiden University, Pieter de la Court building, Wassenaarseweg 52,
Leiden, a 10-minute walk from Leiden CS. Note that the temporary
building entry is at the Wassenaarseweg side.
Cost: Free of charge
Information and registration: here
<http://www.ascleiden.nl/Events/Seminar-Publish-and-still-perish.aspx> .
<mailto:asc@ascleiden.nl>
You are all welcome! Please register.



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