State of the book in communication

With the dawn of the month of September each year, we speak more of the book, literature and literary activities culminating in a State literary festival, where the high point is the ceremonial literary awards for the best literary and academic contributions for works of high standard in all the three languages.

It is a well-known fact that the booksellers and book publishers like to introduce their new publications to the masses at a reduced prize holding the greatest book fair of the country in Colombo.

The librarians, the parents, the teachers and book lovers, find the month of September, the special month set apart for the most interesting dialogues and seminars on all aspects of book development, literary taste building, and the introduction of the latest translations and other factors inter linked.

The National Library Services Board and the Documentation Centre is seen arranging various seminars and conferences centred round the book and its need to masses. Though on the surface layer the discussion on the book seems old, it is becoming new and modern facing all the communication challenges according to UNESCO sources.

They state that the book is the most powerful medium that stands all the challenges of the electronic and other high powered trends like film, television, videos and other digital systems. Furthermore eight billion books and 590,000 new titles now come from the presses every year and the rate is in the increase despite many a challenge from other media channels.

It is necessary to say that, "Books are, as they have been in the past, an irreplaceable storehouse of knowledge and of cultural values. This century has seen a great and still accelerating increase in book production, which can be ascribed to the growth in the absolute number of literates, advances in education, the arrival of paperbacks, improvement in production and distribution techniques and the spread of libraries even to remote places." [UNESCO MacBride report p.60]

As the interest in the book production grew, the significance of studying various cultures became important and as apart of this education the term 'literacy' came to be widely known as the ability to read and write.

This ability is the best of abilities for a human being in the cross cultural communication context. A special training had to be undergone by some teachers as part of this project of training students to read and write from the beginning.

To meet this factor in education an interchange of ideas across nations became a compulsory need where special books and texts had to be written creatively keeping the cultural susceptibilities in the forefront. But in a survey of the local school timetable setting, we were made to know that the silent reading habit inculcated over the years as a part of the training to read books is somewhat absent and undermined, a principal of a leading school said.

"Although we were trained in our school days to read books silently in the classroom the trend is not promoted by the present day educationists for no apparent reason. I think we should bring back the concept once again into the classroom in order to create a better awareness of books and authors."

Another principal of a leading girls' school said, "Mass media channels should help build a better climate of opinion on books and that should be called a book culture at school level where a free dialogue should be build on books, authors and other aspects connected with books.

Though newly introduced fashions and mod trends and cookery are widely discussed over the television channels, the scope given to the book and the book culture is insufficient. A series of supplementary readers should be introduced from time to time as a variant to the textbooks."

Talking to a leading local book publisher, I was given the impression that though the children of all ages are interested in reading books, the adults like the parents and teachers have not paved the proper way for the discriminative selection of books.

This has resulted in the publication of some riffraff or one can say low brow denatured books that abound the book market at a cheap rate badly produced. Quite a number of local publishers have pointed out that the translations sell more than the original local creations.

A team of us was interested in knowing the facts behind this phenomenon. One factor was seen as the influence of television films on the formation of knowing more of the works based on them. Take for instance, the Tarzan and Superman books (this list can be extended to all works with a cult hero). The basic interest grew or stemmed out of the visuals one saw, which eventually kindled the interest.

The same thing happened to Enid Blyton series in translation for at a particular moment a series of tele films based on Blyton books came to be shown with subtitles. As an alternative measure the local publishers introduced a number of Blyton books to the market with a few advertisements.

The educationists are of the view that this will not tarnish the interest in reading better books as they cultivate over the years a taste for reading which is much more important than being silent.

It is calculated that at least fifty-seven to sixty Sinhala books are produced within a month. There are eight to ten major local publication firms which produce at least ten to fifteen books each per month. This amount exceeds sometimes as a result of book fairs and other literary activities.

Sometimes a harvest of books (mainly translations from foreign sources predominantly novels of all types) are launched by some publishers where the main talking point is the need for more and better translations.

It was announced that the programme advisory committee of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation has taken the introduction of books seriously and of vital interest commenting that a book will be introduced on each day to the listener. This is a welcome variant to the existing pattern where the listener's interest in books is created unknowingly. In the final analysis a book is a commodity in the modern world, but it is also a treasure trove of knowledge.