•  ISSUE NUMBBt THRE & FOUR • 1888 •

Then  how come that Akuba's stepfather  was
not  prepared  to  stay with  the stepdaughter.
Had it  been  him  who had a child,  would  he
have expected Akuba's mother to live with  that
Child?

There is also the resilience of women,  from
Mampa  who accept to bring  up Akuba,  as
well as  her mother  whose determination  to
have  her  daughter  educated  could  not  be
dimmed  by an unfeeling  husband.  In the end,
perseverance  did  it.
Women  must  not  be
daunted  by  the  ob-
stacles.  They  can  suc-
ceed.
In 

'Some  Global

News: A Short  Far-Voice
the  interna-
Report,' 
tional  dimension 
is
brought into the picture
and  how human  beings
virtually  behave 
the
same way.

In  'Lice', the  author
touches  on a major  so-
cial  problem,  the  ten-
dency  for  men to aban-
don  their  children  to
their wives and leave the
upbringing of such children to the women. The
frustrations  and  the  thought  of your  man in

Ama Ata Aidoo

the arms of  another  woman, all  these  can
affect  the moral  and psychology  of  women
to think  negatively.

But as happened  with Sissie, how can a
mother  kill herself  and her daughter  out of
frustration.  So, even  after  Sissie had poured
petrol on the head of Baby and herself,  she
could  not  bring herself  to  see their  death,
hence  the  decision  to  put  off  the  lighted
match  before it caused  havoc.

'How  should  she go about  it?  Ah,  she
knew. She should light  baby's head first. Then
her own. She struck  the match. Loud cough-
ing  came from beyond  the door.  Of  course,
it was Kofi  who had coughed.  There was also
a sound of him turning restlessly in  his sleep.
He coughed again. Sissie heard it. The match
box and  the lighted  stick  fell from  Sissie's
hands. She  sat on the edge of the bed.  After
a second  of being perfectly  still,  she  moved
with the  greatest  effort  she must have  ever
made in her whole life, and brought her  foot
on the  glowing match.  Then she  threw  her-
self back on the bed  and burst  into  tears'.
'Choosing - a  Moral  from  the World  of
Work,' is  another  with  philosophy,  a  great
lesson  for  those with  talent.  We must  al-
ways  have  to make  a decision and a choice.

Boadu-Ayeboafoh writes for the literary columns of
The Graphic, Accra

Not yet the hour of signs

Philip G. Altbach and Damtew Teferra Eds.,
KNOWLEDGE DISSEMINATION  IN AFRICA:
THE  ROLE OF SCHOLARLY  JOURNALS.
Bellagio Publishing Network Massachusetts
and Oxford.  1989. 137 PP.

Philip G. Altbach and Damtew Teferra  Eds..
PUBLISHING AND DEVELOPMENT: A BOOK
OF READINGS. Bellagio  Publishing Network;
co-published with Obor. The International
Book Institute, Inc.. Massachusetts and Ox-
ford. 1989 190 pp.

'Bellagio  Studies  in  Publish-
ing, 9 -publishing' -foregrounds
the  'Bellagio Studies  in  Pub-
lishing, 8 -Knowledge' - which
merely  contextualises  the Af-
rican experience in publishing;

hence, I have taken  liberty
with  this  more  convenient
sequence to draw my  obser-
vations. Publishing  contains
nine chapters including 'Cur-
rent Trends in Book Publish-

Sola OlorunyomiwHEN  the au-

t o m o b i le
c a m e,
techno-ad-
dicts  promptly  proclaimed
that 
the  bicycle's  hour of
signs  had  arrived, but some-
how after  about  a  century
the 'iron horse' continues  to
redefine its own imperatives.
The allusion  seems  to  un-
derscore  Bellagio's  new ini-
tiative  which  attempts  to
weigh the impact  of the new
information 
technology  on
the old  letter press  mode of
publishing; and for those con-
versant  only with Bellagio's
fellowships  to "scholars  and
writers,  this must  be indeed
a welcome  development.

Somehow 

though,  'the

Slendsri  Bilks  Supplement

29

ISSUE NUMBER THRE & FOUR •  1998

of  communication.

The moment  for concern in
book piracy, Gleason suggests,
is that phase of the emergence
of printing -press  pirates who
are  invariably  beyond  sanc-
tion  once  they operate  out-
side  of the  laws  of  a  given
country,  a  situation  which
explains  the need  for  bilat-
eral  copyright  legislation.  A
number of  posers  are raised
by Altbach  concerning the sta-
tus  of the Third World in the
Import/Export of Publications.
For  instance,  he asks:  why is
the  cost  of  foreign  books  so
high  in 
the  Third  World;
should  more  books  be  re-
printed  in  third world  coun-
tries  under  license  from  the
original  Western  publisher;
what  are  the implications of
book  imports  for  indigenous
Third  World  publishing;  and,
how  can  imports  be  discour-
aged and indigenous  publish-
ing be  advanced  without  at
the same time restricting  ac-
cess to information? These are
posers  which,  one  hopes,
would  invariably  have  to be
taken  up both by government
agencies  and  NGOs  at  the
level of  policy formulation.

With 

this  background
properly  laid,  one begins  to
get  a  better  appreciation  of
knowledge,  whose  main
theme is  the  role of  scholarly
journals  in Africa.

Altbach explores 'The Role
and Nurturing of  Journals in
the  Third  World,  "Paul
Tiyambe  Zeleza  - 'The  Chal-
lenges  of  Editing  Scholarly
Journals  in Africa,'  Teferra -
'The  Significance of  Informa-
tion  Technology  for  African
Scholarly  Journals,'  while
Jacob Jaygbay  considers 'The
Politics  of and  Prospects  for
African Scholarly  Journals in
the Information  Age."

SINEDAn Ethiopian Jour-
nal of Science, is  the focus of
Legesse  Negash's  contribu-
tion,  while Hans M. Zell gives
an  insight  into  the  world of
'African  Journal Publishers in
a  Digital  Environment'.  'Ana

ing' (Philip Altbach); 'Multi-
nationals  and  Third  World
Publishing'  (Gordon  Gra-
ham); 
'The Economics of Book
Publishing' (Datus  C. Smith
Jr);  'International  Copyright'
(Paul  Gleason); and  'Distri-
bution: The Neglected Link in
the 
Publishing  Chain'
(Amadio A. Arboleda).

Others  are  'Educational
Publishing  and  Book Provi-
sion' (Pernille Askerud); 'The
Transition  from  State 
to
Commercial Publishing Sys-
tems  in  African  Countries'
(Paul  Brickhill);  'Electronic
Publishing:  New  Technolo-
gies and Publishing' (Czeslaw
Jan Grycz); 'Publishing in the
Third  World:  Issues  and
Trends for  the  Twenty-First
Century'  (Altbach);  coupled
with  an  engaging  introduc-
tion  on 'Publishing, Indepen-
dence, and Development'  by
the editors.

Basically,  the  contribu-
tions  provide  us  with  key
readings  concerning  book
publishing in the third world,
the role of multinational cor-
porations  viz 'the needs of a
small industry  publishing in
low per capital  income coun-
tries,'  as 
the  introductory
note states, and the struggle
between  independence  and
dependence  in  the  book  in-
dustry. All contributors are in
agreement  to  the  fact  that
new  technologies have  radi-
cally  transformed 
the book
publishing  process  and  dis-
tribution,  with  much  of the
third world standing periph-
eral  to the  major  centres of
publishing.  Graham  identi-
fies  three factors  that  have
led  to the entry of  multina-
tionals  into  the  publishing
industry namely as: the  pro-
liferation  of information  be-
yond  the  capacity  that  the
printed word could  efficiently
handle,  the  intervention of
the  stock  market,  and  the
presumption of  both buyers
and sellers  of books that  the
book  would  progressively
decline  as  the major  vehicle

Glendon  Books  Supplement

30

though 

Maria  Cetto's  and  Octavia
Alonso-Gamboa's  joint  paper
is the  only  exception  in  ex-
ploring 
the  same
theme from  the Latin  Ameri-
can and Caribbean  experience.
Zell adds an  interesting  ap-
pendix on journals' marketing
on the internet.

Often 

though,  contribu-
tors  are  quite  repetitive  of
one  another,  with each  -irre-
spective  of  specified  topic -
belabouring the reader on ba-
sic  information  on digiscript,
E-mail  service,  computer, and
the nature of the internet. One
of the strong points of this col-
lection is the  editing  process
which the author  identifies  as
a  serious  draw  back  in  the
scholarly journal  process  on
the continent. The main  prob-
lem  here,  he  suggests, is  the
review  process,  which  is
poorly  developed  'both  in
terms of  referring  and com-
munication  with  authors'
(p.29).

language 

It is  with the Latin Ameri-
can and Caribbean  experience
that we are  brought  into the
common  problems  of  Africa
and  this  region. The  authors
note  the  problem  posed  by
the 
situation
whereby  scholars  have  in-
creasingly  found  themselves
having to  submit  articles in
other  languages - mainly  En-
glish  -in  order  to tap  into  a
wider  international  outreach.
However,  the general con-
clusion  drawn is  that  in spite
of the limitations of the tradi-
tional  print  medium  of  jour-
nal publication, it  still stands
as a tested  form of knowledge
dispersal  and  this  tradition
should  be  continued,  while
at  the same  time 'domesticat-
super
ing' the  information 
highway  in  a  manner 
that
would  best  serve  African
scholars.

Olorunyomi, a literary journal-
ist, is a doctoral student in the
English  department,  Univer-
sity of Ibadan.