Byrd Cecll (1 results)

kart. Condition: Gut. 161 S., Very good copy, cover with some signs of wear.- FOREWORD: Singapore is a tiny, tropical island Republic of 224.5 square miles, with a population of just over 2 million (2,033,500 at the end of 1969), which includes three major ethnic groups: Chinese (74.3%), Malay (14.5%) and Indian and Pakistani (8.0%), while most other major groups are represented in Singapore. The Malay, Chinese, Tamil and English languages, as the most widely used languages, are all recognised as official languages of the country. The Malay language is also the national language, as it is of neigh-bouring Malaysia and Indonesia. The Chinese (Mandarin) language is used both in speech and in writing, although a large num-ber of Chinese dialects such as Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew and Hakka are widely spoken. Tamil is one of the main languages of Southern India and the main language of the Tamils in Ceylon, and was first introduced by Indian and Ceylonese immigrants to Singapore, but other Indian languages such as Hindi, Bengali, Urdu and Malayalam are also common. Because of this highly diverse population, the book industry in Singapore, as with many other fields of activity, exhibits a characteristic complexity unwarranted by Singapore's size, and deserving of close study as a microcosm of the book Problems of developing countries and, particularly, those of the Asian region. The initial impetus for such study came with the Unesco Meeting of Experts on the Problems of Book Production and Distribution in Asia held in Tokyo in May 1966. This provided an assessment of the general Situation with regard to the grave shortage of books in the Asian region, reflected in a per capita annual rate of book consumption between 30 to 60 times lower than that in the world's leading book Publishing countries. A large number of important recommendations were made at the Meeting on mea-sures to develop national book production and book distribution within Asian countries and to promote the flow of books between Asian countries as well as the rest of the worid. The Meeting also stressed the need for the national planning of book development as part of each nation's overall development planning and the drawing up of national book targets with the close co-operation of government and the book industry, possibly undertaken by a Natinal Book Development Council or Trust broadly representative of all the sectors concerned. Foilowing the Tokyo Meeting, the Library Association of Singapore organised a Workshop on the Problems of Book Production and Distribution in Singapore held in Singapore in November of the same year. The Workshop brought together for the first time publishers, booksellers, printers, librarians, authors, readers and educationalists in a common and united effort to examine and seek Solutions to the particular problems faced by the book indus-try in Singapore. One of the major recommendations of the Workshop was the setting up of a National Book Development Council of Singapore. The Working Committee to take follow-up action on all the Workshop's recommendations worked patiently to achieve this objective, receiving further Stimulus with Singa-pore's joining of the Unesco Reading Materials Project in Asia in April 1968 and the holding in Singapore of the Unesco Meeting of Experts on Book Development Planning in Asia held in September 1968. The Co invaluable w its gratefu' royalties den It also ackrx fully and um Chopmen En organisatiors ance to Dr. I successfulty The National Book Development Council of Singapore was formally inaugurated in February 1969 and took over the functions of the previous Working Committee. Almost immediately the Council had an unexpected stroke of good fortune with an offer of voluntary Service from Dr. Cecil K. Byrd, a distinguished American university librarian, who was to spend a year's sabbatical leave in Singapore from July 1969. As Dr. Byrd was no stranger to Southeast Asia, and had participated in book and library surveys of.