Electronic Publishing Opportunities in Southeast Asia
Chin Saik Yoon -- Publishers Weekly, 10/2/1996
Contents:- Abstract
- Electronic Publishing: A Definition
- The Southeast Asia Region
- The Present Status
- The Future
- Opportunities for Collaboration
This paper is presented in five parts: thedefinition of electronic publishing, a briefoverview of the Southeast Asian Region, thecurrent status of electronic publishing, theforecasted future of electronic publications,and finally some potential areas of collaborationamong Southeast Asian publishers as well asbetween them and their colleagues from the otherregions of the world.
The potential areas of collaboration andcooperation include:
- The exchange or sale of rights.
- Joint development of software tools.
- Training
- Hosting of mirror web-sites, and
- Cooperative marketing.
Electronic publishing is the processing anddissemination of content in the form ofcomputer, or machine-readable, language. Thislanguage is commonly referred to as a "digitisedform" of content or information. Within Southeast Asia, most electronicpublishers began by building scholarly andresearch databases. The data they heldfrequently originated from abstracting journalswhich contained abstracts and otherbibliographic data on scientific, research anddevelopment documents. Many databases emphasisedthe collection of abstracts on "grey" or"fugitive" documents. These are documents whichare not formally published and usually existonly in a restricted number of copies. Academictheses, institutional working-papers,policy-briefs, and reports of research-in-progressare some examples. These databases were at firstavailable only to a limited number of users whoworked within the proximity of the facility wherethe databases were housed. Until the mid-1980s,the databases ran on either main-frame ormini-computers. They were expensive and complexmachines which only the large, well-fundedinstitutions within the region could afford tobuy and maintain. The late 1980s saw the adventof affordable personal computers which helpedgreatly in diffusing the new informationtechnologies to the general population. UNESCO'sfree-release of the CDS-ISIS software formicro-computers, and the provision of training inthe automation of database management by otherinternational agencies, pricipally by theInternational Development Research Centre (IDRC),gave an effective boost within the region. A goodexample of such training is the series of courseson library automation conducted by UniversitiSains Malaysia in Penang, Malaysia with fundingfrom IDRC. These courses ran for threeconsecutive years and more than 100 informationprofessionals from all over Asia "graduated" fromthem. Electronic publications within the region aredelivered via a number of channels. Manybibliographic databases were launched as"on-line" services where users logged-on to acomputer via telecommunication connections andinterrogated the host computer holding the datadesired by the users. The end-users, most ofwhom were academic researchers, accomplished thisvia librarians who interpreted their requestsfor information into computer search strategieswhich were executed on computer terminals andthe results down-loaded from the host computerand printed-out on paper for the end-users. Thiscentralised form of information delivery provedto be very expensive for most users within theregion because of the forbidding long-distancetelecommunication tariff. Some users overcamethe cost factor by obtaining duplicates of themost frequently consulted databases on tape andmounting them on to their own computers forsearches to be conducted locally. These reels oftapes are probably the prototypes of non-onlineelectronic publications. As with the otherregions, these cumbersome tapes were soonreplaced by the high-density floppy disk, then theCD-ROM, and perhaps soon by the DVD of thefuture. The rapid drop in prices of personalcomputers within the region has helped in makingpersonal computers, and the electronicpublications which run on them, affordable tobusinesses, and now more commonly, even to thehomes. The home computing market has beendominated so far by gaming products rather than"traditional" electronic publications of textand educational multimedia. Electronicpublications, when they are read, are currentlyobtained free via the internet. A very small number of electronicpublications have been produced and releasedwithin the region in the form of memory-chipsembedded within a customised play-back device.The chantings of Buddhist "sutras" (prayers) isone successful example of this form ofpublishing. The satisfactory connections enjoyed by someSoutheast Asian countries to the Internet hasmade the world wide web the most popular mode forobtaining electronic publications during the pastthree years within those countries with suchconnections. Its popularity within thesecountries continues to rise in parallel with therapidly increasing numbers of people who arrangefor personal connections, or gain access throughconnections made by their work-places. As is evident in this brief review, theadvent of electronic publishing within theregion has mirrored that of Europe and NorthAmerica. The main difference is that SoutheastAsians have largely been passive consumers ofimported electronic publications until now.However many initiatives have been made tostimulate local electronic publishing. A few ofthese initiatives will be discussed later in thepaper. The region is a complex grouping of tencountries: Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia,Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore,Thailand and Vietnam. The economic developmentwithin the region has been uneven. SoutheastAsia offers one of the world's most properouscountries (Singapore) as well as some of thepoorest (Burma, Laos and Cambodia). The economically more advanced countries are theones making-up the original founders of ASEAN --the Association of Seoutheast Asian Nations.They are Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines,Singapore and Thailand. Brunei has for a longtime been independantly wealthy and is now a fullASEAN member. The latest member of the groupingis Vietnam. Cambodia and Laos are "Observers"within ASEAN, a kind of associate membership.Burma is expected to be accorded this "Observer"status within the year, ASEAN is an economic grouping and is active inpromoting trade and other multilateral economicinterests. Besides economic matters, theregional grouping also takes an active interestin sports and culture. Listed below are some very recent statisticsrelated to computer ownership and Internetaccess. Since electronic publications are verymuch dependant on computers for retrieval; andbecause the future of some types of electronicpublications may be linked to the development ofthe Internet, a review of the data below mayreveal the potential for such publications withinthe region: The figures for Japan, the most economicallyadvanced country in Asia are provided below forpurposes of comparison and analysis: The above statistics are extracted from Morgan,J. &Short, S.. "Asia Inc.", September 1996. Little is known about the exact status ofelectronic publishing within the region as noformal survey has ever been attempted within thesector. Non-formal appraisals of the marketplace suggest a thriving trade in CD-ROMs existswithin the large cities of the economically moreadvanced Southeast Asian countries. However thismarket is dominated by games and entertainmenttitles. A market seems to exist for referenceproducts such as encyclopedia, dictionares, andthesauri. Many of the reference titles appear tohave been bundled with multimedia upgrade kitsrather than deliberate purchases of consumers. The market for scholarly and professional titleshas been concentrated within universities, largecorporations, hospitals, the armed forces, andspecialised libraries or information resourcecentres. In addition to CD-ROMs, a significantnumber of these institutions also purchase datafrom commercial online services such as Dialog.This is an extremely specialized market, one ofthe most popularly purchased CD-ROM appears tobe MEDLINE. During a recent test of a prototypeCD-ROM, the author found that MEDLINE and Dialogsearch and retrieval features were popularlycited as a kind of "norm" by existing users ofelectronic products. The vast majority of electronic publicationscurrently being sold and used within the regionare imported from Europe and North America.Nearly all of them are published in the Englishlanguage. The same trend appears to apply to Internetusers. They seem to be accessing informationchiefly from outside the region. This is bestillustrated by the ratio of information flowinginto and out of Malaysia which has been monitoredat 3.5 : 1. This ratio is both "worrying", in theway that Malaysians are "over-consuming" importedinformation which may have limited relevance tolocal application; it is at the same timeencouraging in suggesting a ready market for theelectronic format if Malaysian publishers weresuccessful in making available attractive andinteresting information. The linquistic element must be borned foremostin the mind of publishers when planningelectronic publications or marketing them withinthe region. In many of the countries, English isa foreign language. Thai, Bahasa Indonesia,Vietnamese, Laotian, etc. are the nationallanguages. This diversity of languages withinASEAN has made it difficult to producepublications with a regional market. Non-textbased products such as games have done very wellbecause of the non-existance of this obstaclewhich continues to confront textual publicationsand prevent publishers from reaping anyeconomies of scale. A number of key informants were polled, viae-mail, during the writing of this paper in anattempt to estimate the number of electronicpublications which have been produced within theregion. Most of the informants placed theirestimates as below 20 titles for the CD-ROMformat. Some of the titles known to the authorare described below: Apart from the above, there are several groupsat different stages of preparation to launchelectronic publishing programmes using the CDformat. The numbers of electronic publishers are muchlarger when we cross over to the World Wide Web.In many of the richer ASEAN countries,governments, ministries, and private sectorcompanies are in a rush to set-up their privatehomepages -- frequently more as a kind ofprestige-enhancing exercise than a seriousattempt at publishing electronicallyinformation. The most sucessful websites tend to be those builtand maintained by newspapers. For example The Star Online the site belonging to THE STARnewspaper of Malaysia is among the world's top 5%of most frequently accessed sites. Some Southeast Asian information technologistsestimate that the region is starting almost adecade later than Europe or North America inelectronic publishing. Plans are now being laidfor more active participation in this area ofactivity for the future. The future is thesubject of the next section of this paper. The diversity which comprise Southeast Asia makesit impossible to predict the region's future inelectronic publishing with a reasonable degreeof accuracy. This is therefore not anauthoritative forecast. It is rather a personalview of what may lie ahead over the next decade. Much of this section will focus on Malaysia.This is partly due to the clearer macro viewwhich the author has of his home country, andalso because Malaysia is somewhat morerepresentative of members of ASEAN and maytherefore serve as a very "rough" point ofdeparture from which to guess at the regio'nsfuture. The enforcement of intellectual property rights,already fairly rigourous in many of the ASEANcountries will get better. The incentive to do socomes from the region's increasingly global basisof commerce. ASEAN Nations are deeply aware thatfor their corporations to flourish overseas, andfor multinational companies to feel comfortablein making sustained investments in the region,intellectual property rights must be enforced andsecured. The ownership of personal computers, and some ofthe latest innovations such as the Internet-readytelevision sets and DVD players will increasefairly rapidly. This will be partly due to therising affluence of some nations, and alsobecause the psyche of most of the countries inthe region are quickly transforming from that ofconservative technology-adopters to earlytechnology adopters. There is also a good chancethat some innovators may emerge within theregion over the next ten years who may invent newinformation technologies for the regional andglobal markets. This has already happened in thecase of Creative Labs of Singapore whichinvented "Soundblaster" the current worldstandard for audio-facilities on themicro-computer. The market within the region for Englishlanguage titles will increase with the currentemphasis on English language teaching in theregion's schools and institutions of higherlearning. The region will probably evolve and build itsown Internet routes. The current routing viaNorth America will become so congested thatSoutheast Asian service providers will choose orbe forced to establish intraregional hubs withinthe region. This new Asian network will not beconfined to Southeast Asia alone but be open toAsia as a whole as well as the hinterlands at theperiphary. Such initiatives are already underwayinvolving companies from Singapore, Thailand,and Hong Kong, just to name a few of thoseinvolved. Electronic commerce within Southeast Asia willbe free and vibrant. Plans which will beimplemented progressively over the next decadeand a half will harmonise or remove tariffs onthe movement of goods, and provision of servicesacross boundaries of member ASEAN states. Foreign exchange controls will be minimal. Transportation links for goods will improve. Theconditions will be conducive for electronicpublishing and the sale of either digitisedworks, traditional paper products and CD-basedtitles. More regional (versus the currentnational) electronic titles will be produced toreap economies of scale of production andmarketing. These products will probably be inEnglish and will attract a larger internationalmarket than that enjoyed by the current crop oftitles. In order to appreciate the type ofinfrastructure and legislation which is beingplanned and implemented within the region tostimulate the growth of the informationindustries, we will study below the case ofMalaysia and the "Multimedia Super Corridor" whichthe Malaysians are now embarking upon. The Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) is a geographical area measuring 15 km. by 40 km.located on the plains in the Mid-East of theMalaysian Peninsular. This area encompasses theCity of Kuala Lumpur, the new Kuala LumpurInternational Airport which is now being built,and Putrajaya, the new Capital City of Malaysiawhich is also currently under construction. The government is now actively encouraging largemultinational companies such as Microsoft andDigital, to establish regional business hubs andresearch and development facilities within thiscorridor. These international companies willform the core of a kind of science park whichwill catalyse the development of the latestinformation technologies not only withinMalaysia but also the region. The Malaysian Government has already drafted andwill soon pass a "Multimedia Bill of Guarantees"which will create the most conducivelegislative environment for multimedia andinformation technology companies to operate. Thelegislation will facilitate convergence oftechnologies, and allow companies to operatefreely across several sectors which aredeliberately segregated in most countries. Amongthe legislations will be fair and enablingcyberlaws, and intellectual property protectionlaws. Companies will also be accordedpreferrential taxation regimes, venture capitalsupport, and other incentives tailored to meetthe needs of individual investors. The government is aware that content is missingfrom the above design of the MSC. The primaryconcern is for the stimulation of Malaysiancontent to provide information seekers withlocal sources. A determined effort will bemounted to balance the current lopsidedinformation flow of 3.5 (foreign information) to1 (Malaysian information) over the Malaysian endof the Internet. A budget of about $160 MillionUnited States Dollars has been set aside for thedevelopment of such local content over the nextfive years. The private sector companies are making theirown efforts to create an enabling environment.They have recently established an entity tosafeguard the intellectual property ofpublishers from unauthorised usage locally.Proposals will be made to this company t stablish a copyright clearing-house which willenable royalty payments to be "metered" andcollected on the basis of actual usagemonitored. Such a clearing-house is essential forelectronic publishing which involve customiseddown-loads, and printing on demand. The following list of products and servicessought and encourgaded by the MSC will serve toconclude this section of the paper:
