News

This is an exciting time for our industry.  We’ve seen tremendous changes in recent years: from accelerated digital migration to the development of new business models to new online platforms for reading.  The pace and breadth of changes that we’re seeing are significant and challenging.  

However, while some might view these changes as threatening, I prefer to look at them as opportunistic. In fact, if there is one word I would choose to categorize how I feel about the years to come for our industry, it’s optimistic.  Yes, there are many things brewing in the industry that we will have to face as we move forward: competing technologies, increased pressure for exceptions to copyright, imposition of restrictions on publishing expressions, etc. But if anything, these four years have shown me just how ready our community is - to evolve and to embrace these changes.

As I reflect more closely on the past four years, I’m incredibly proud of all that we have accomplished as an association.  In particular, one of the major themes of my presidency has been to communicate the value of publishing.  And I think that we’ve done a fantastic job of doing that, both within IPA and to the greater publishing community and the world.

Internal changes to better communicate our value

Within the IPA, the past four years have seen significant changes to help us better serve our members and better meet our goals.  For example, we reformed membership fees to make the system more transparent and commensurate with countries’ publishing strengths, and we instituted our first ever membership survey to find out how we can better meet your needs.

Our secretariat underwent quite a few changes as well, including the hiring of our Director of Communications, Dougal Thomson, and Director of Policy, José Borghino.  We also moved to a new, more centrally located office space, closer to influential organizations like WIPO and WTO.  With the help of the Secretariat, we strengthened IPA communications by creating a database of over 200 publishers, a Facebook page, a LinkedIn Group, a Twitter account, and a newsletter with over 1,600 subscribers.  We also developed a new, revamped website with a fresh visual identity and are in the process of finalizing the redesigning of our logo to better represent our close ties with the digital world.

And to ensure that we are able to continue making important changes like these, we introduced sponsorship as a new income stream in the form of the FTP Prize Sponsorship and the IPA Global Publishing Statistics Sponsorship.

Communicating our value to the greater publishing community and the world  

We have also made significant progress in communicating our value to the greater publishing community and the world.

One prominent accomplishment that stands out is the strengthening of IPA’s freedom to publish (FTP) initiatives. Since 2011, we established a new biennial FTP Prize and recruited a new FTP Chair, conducted fact finding missions to identify and name societies with limitations on the freedom to publish, led campaigns in support of individual publishers threatened by prosecution, and awarded the FTP prize to three well-deserving publishers: Bui Chat of Giay Vun Publishing in Vietnam, South African cartoonist Jonathan ‘Zapiro’ Shapiro, and Ihar Lohvinau of the Lohvinau Publishing House in Belarus.  

Another accomplishment I’d like to point to is the successful conclusion of the Marrakesh Treaty to facilitate access to published works for persons who are blind, visually impaired, or otherwise print-disabled. IPA participated extensively in the discussions leading up to the treaty and played an active role in following it through to its conclusion.

Furthermore, in 2011, the EC approved the creation of the IPA Copyright Contingency Fund, allowing IPA to contribute to global anti-piracy actions and other copyright-related legal proceedings. In doing so, we’ve demonstrated our willingness to monetarily support the promotion and protection of copyright around the world.

The 29^th IPA Congress in Cape Town, South Africa was another event that we should all be very proud of.  As the first IPA Congress held on the African continent, it was a great success. The Congress’s theme—“Publishing for a New Era”—addressed issues that publishers around the world are dealing with, and our delegates had much to contribute and much to learn.  I look forward to seeing many of you at the upcoming 30^th IPA Congress in Bangkok, which I’m sure will be equally successful.

The Educational Publishers Forum has also been strengthened over these past four years into a more sophisticated and structured committee, allowing the Forum to address the serious issues that lie ahead in educational publishing. The “What Works?” Education Conference at the London Book Fair, which has now been held twice and attracted over 150 attendees most recently, is one example of how productive the Forum has been in recent years.

We have continued lobbying on behalf of publishing and communities around the world, meeting with major stakeholders in the publishing community including leaders of WIPO, the World Bank, and UNESCO.  I have also made numerous visits to publishers associations and government officials in over 20 countries to advance IPA’s causes.

Finally, we were able to increase our membership and expand our global reach: we transitioned three affiliate members to regular members—Ukraine, Serbia and the United Arab Emirates. In addition, the Armenian National PA, the Tunisian Publishers Association, and the Publisher’s section of the Chamber of Commerce of Slovenia were admitted as new affiliate members.

All of these accomplishments could not have been possible without the constant support we’ve received from our dedicated members across the world, and I cannot thank you enough. I also want to thank the wise Executive Committee members and the devoted IPA Secretariat based in Geneva for all of their hard work and enthusiasm.

I’d like to conclude as I always do, by urging more of you to become actively involved with IPA.  I encourage you to reach out if there is anything that IPA is working on that you are interested in supporting, or if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions.  I have full confidence that my friend, Richard Charkin, will take IPA in an exciting direction in 2015, and I hope you can all actively be a part of that effort.  I look forward to seeing what lies ahead.  As Past President, I will redouble my support for the new President!

In the meantime, however and wherever you celebrate the end of year, I hope that you all have a safe and memorable holiday season, surrounded by family and friends!  Thank you one more time for your support while I served you as IPA’s valued members. 

Warmest regards,

Youngsuk ‘YS’ Chi

President