CURRENT TOPICS
With the approach of the millennium, many of our overseas publishers are planning millennium projects. HarperCollins will soon be announcing their new comprehensive Times Atlas, the so-called Millennium Edition. This well-known Atlas is considered the most authoritative in the world. It was originally published by The Times, and has been continued by HarperCollins. Previously they had always published a new and revised edition at least once every three years since it was first published as an one volume edition in 1967. The 9th edition had been published almost five years ago, and in these five years, the world has vastly changed. We are all awaiting the new edition which will contain more detailed charts and maps. This Millennium Edition will come to the market in October. Yushodo has been a long-time partner in promoting the Atlas, introduced as the Japan edition, in the Japan market and for the Millennium Edition, we have signed a contract with HarperCollins. We are planning an extensive promotional campaign throughout Japan, "Now is the time to Kaikae!" (Now is the time to change your old Atlas for the new one!). The new Atlas, printed using digital technology, will contain more than 225,000 place names and because of all the changes, it will be difficult to compare with other Atlases and other media. From July this year, Yushodo will begin its promotional campaign, especially through the Internet.
Yushodo Press is also planning to announce as their Millennium project a new title which compiles documents and records on Modern Japanese History from the foreigners' point of view. Generally speaking, it has been a rather difficult time for the publishing business and for the first time since the war, 1998 statistics have shown declining figures for the publishing business in Japan. The shift to the new media has in reality made our business more complicated.
As far as Yushodo's main market is concerned, i.e. that of importing and selling to the academic market, especially the university library market, library acquisition budgets are generally down. Compared to three years ago, the market has declined 10% and due to the 25% increase in periodicals pricing, acquisition budgets for the normal book market have been adversely affected.
Despite the difficult times, when a special budget was made available from the Japanese government, we were quite happy to have been able to supply materials from our valuable stocks and microform products that we have kept for some time in order to meet the demands of libraries.
Finally on the subject of the millennium, because communications have become much closer and quicker due to the Internet, enterprises have become global and worldwide not only in scope but also in actual size. We believe, that in order to serve our customers and provide materials to the educational and academic market, we must continue to have our own special and independent character. Yushodo will always aim to be "the only one in Japan" in this manner. Year 2002 will mark the time of Yushodo's 70th anniversary and we shall initiate some internal changes and invest in possible joint ventures with foreign firms in order to be "the only one in Japan."
Going to current topics of the Yushodo Group, first I visited New York and Boston in April and had meetings with several publishers who gave us exclusive sales rights in our market. I felt that most of these firms' top executives have changed and that also these will change to the younger generation. The merging of companies have also had a great influence on these firms as well. Not having visited Boston for quite some time, I had the chance to visit the annual convention of the Association of Asian Studies which was being held there at the time. It was a pleasure to meet many librarians who are taking care of Japanese books at major American universities. These contributions to the American academia act as a bridge between the U.S. and Japanese libraries and have been very important in post war history. Yushodo will always be honored to support these lines both personally and as publisher.
Since its foundation, Yushodo has held the responsibility as the acting office for the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of Japan (ABAJ). As a member of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB), the ABAJ has always sent its delegates to the ILAB's meetings and events. In commemoration of its 35th anniversary, the ABAJ held a very unique antiquarian book fair last March at the Josui Kaikan (Josui Hall) in Tokyo. It is said that rare books continue to be unique items and that they maintain their original value and remain good assets. The ABAJ is now trying very hard to promote to more private collectors in Japan and approximately $2,000,000 was realized as turnover at the fair. Yushodo of course had its own booth and we promoted our own stocks of famous and rare books from all over the world. We will be sending our professional managing staff to the London Antiquarian Book Fair in early June and the ALA Conference Exhibition in late June. On a separate subject, as part of Bell & Howell Company, UMI recently announced a change to its company name to "Bell & Howell Information and Learning". To this end we will also be sending two of our staff to their professional training seminar during the summer at Kuala Lumpur. It is our intention to always try to give these chances to the younger staff.
From October 13th for three days, the Library Fair will be held at Tokyo Forum which is in the center of Tokyo. This fair, organized by one of Yushodo's subsidiaries, JCC, is the first one ever to be held in Japan and already JCC has received many reservations for booth spaces. If you wish to show your products and services to the Japanese library market, please let me know by return fax or mail and I will be happy to introduce you to JCC. More than 10,000 participants from public and private university libraries, companies and research centers, are anxiously awaiting this event.
Finally from July 1st, the Yushodo Group will begin its new fiscal year and there will be some major changes within the Group. The former Publishers International Corporation (PIC), now part of Yushodo Fantas Academic Books, will be reorganized to reflect the changing times. When PIC was established about 20 years ago, they represented several famous academic publishers in the Japanese wholesale business, and their turnover was more than $5,000,000 at its peak with only 12 staff. PIC was the finest "offspring" of Yushodo and it was the top profitable firm within the Group. However with the present age of new media and Internet advertising, the wholesale business has fundamentally become less and less profitable. Therefore the staff will be returned to Yushodo Co. under a new division to be called YP Center (Yushodo Publications Center). The new policy goals of YP Center will be to establish strong promotional sales to end users while maintaining the present ties with dealers. Internally the Center's staff will select titles they wish to promote heavily in Japan. So to clients abroad, if you wish to sell your books in Japan, please contact our YP Center which will be your partner in our market and will promote your titles to over 5,000 of our clients. |
