The Ministry of Culture and Information did not respond to the letter of all three publishers' associations requesting a meeting with Minister Maja Gojković regarding the problem arising from this year's purchase of books for libraries, and will most likely inform the public on Wednesday.
The competition for the purchase of books was announced on May 4, a The Ministry of Culture has not yet issued a Decision on the allocation of funds to publishers and distributors. The Ministry last announced itself in mid-September, announcing that it had dissolved the commission Competition due to the conflict of interest of the members, and that it appointed a new one.
Book buying was established in 2000 as a financial aid of the state to publishers and libraries. All these years, it represented a significant item in the publisher's budget and the biggest source of new books for the library fund of Serbia.
If the book purchase procedure is not miraculously completed these days and the Ministry does not approve the selected list of titles that will be purchased from publishers this year and distributed to Serbian libraries, this year for the first time there will be no book purchase.
Funds from the budget for the purchase have been secured, because if they were not, this year's tender could not be announced. Usually, it is around 100 million dinars. According to the budget law, money that is not spent for what it is intended for is returned to the budget. The State Treasury receives and implements payment orders until November 15.
Publishers say it's mission impossible to achieve this, because time is running out to do everything it takes.
They also say that if there is no purchase of books this year, it will have a visible impact on the number of new books next year and on the operations of the libraries.
Namely, the money that the publishers received from the purchase of books enabled them to pay debts to printers, copyrights, royalties to designers, proofreaders and everyone in the chain of production of the books they published in the period between two book purchases. If the publishers do not repay the debt to the printers, they will not accept new business from them, they will not print new books. Very simple.
As far as libraries are concerned, this year's eventual redemption is already overdue. Given that the buyback applies to titles published in 2021, even if they were to receive them by the end of this week, they would be old editions for readers. It is known that their readers are incomparably more interested in hits and the latest books.
If someone says that Serbia is a country with a high percentage of illiterates, they will be right. But at the same time, Serbia is also the country with the highest percentage in the region of those who read books. The Ministry of Culture and Information certainly knows about this information.
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