After a strong protest by the publishers' association due to the delay in completing the competition procedure, the Ministry of Culture and Information today announced the results of the Competition for the purchase of books for public libraries.
102.986.054,68 dinars have been set aside for the books that the state will buy from publishers this year in order to distribute them to Serbian libraries.
200 publishers applied for part of that money.
Of the others, the Official Gazette from Belgrade will receive 7.370.457,40 dinars and IP Pravoslavna reč from Novi Sad - 7.054.916 dinars. The Magic Book follows with 5.048.667,60 dinars. Everyone else is below them.
Nine publishers will receive between two and five million dinars: Academic book, Agora, Book bridge, Kreativni centar, Laguna, Pčelica, Prometheus, Vulkan publishing house and Regional info center.
Fifteen publishers are in the group between one million and two million dinars, and all the rest will receive several hundred thousand or several tens of thousands of dinars each. The lowest amount is 720 dinars.
In the notification of the Ministry, it is written that the commission completed the work "in the shortest possible time with the aim "that high-quality and especially valuable editions reach users, without disputing the need of libraries to fill the fund with popular titles as well".
The publishers' first reactions refer to the commission's decision to give the largest amount to Pravoslavna reč - they wonder if they were rewarded because President Vučić attended the recent promotion of Milorad Ekmečić's Collected Works. They also cannot help but notice that publishers from Novi Sad will receive higher amounts than their colleagues from other cities.
Today's distribution of money intended for the purchase of books for libraries is only the initial phase of the purchase procedure. Next comes the administrative part, signing the contract, sending the approved books to the libraries, their checking whether everything that was ordered has arrived, and a series of preparatory actions that need to be carried out before the Ministry pays the publishers the money it has determined.
Publishers remind that this part of the procedure, under optimal conditions, takes two months and they are not sure if the money will be paid to them by December 15, when the state treasury receives payments for the current year.
And if the Ministry does not pay the 102 million from the beginning of the text by then, the money will be returned to the state budget. In that case, the publishers would not get their money. With that money, they pay the costs of already published books, so printers will refuse to print new ones for them.
This could mean that there will be fewer books next year. But who cares.
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