Printed production
The role of the RA Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports in book publishing is coordination and regulation of the field. In the implementation of state-funded programmes in the field of book publishing, the important role belongs to advisory councils attached to the Ministry. The councils help in taking professional opinion-based decisions and avoid subjective approaches. When forming the councils, each member’s professional training, interdependence with both publishing houses and government structures is taken into account in order to create an impartial and transparent atmosphere.
The programmes of the RA Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports in the field of book publishing are aimed at solving the following problems: equal development of all aspects of the field of literature; preservation, development, dissemination and popularization of the literary-cultural heritage through literary products; reproduction of the creative potential of society and creating conditions for development; creating favorable conditions for international cooperation in the field of book publishing.
Within the framework of the library facilities improvement programme, the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of the Republic of Armenia acquires and distributes to the libraries newly published, valuable books, to meet the modern reading demand of libraries, and encourage the publication of professional, critical and fiction literature through the Creative and Research Activities Grant Programme, established in 2019 to support projects in cultural studies, fiction-writing, and literary criticism. The programme is somewhat filling the gap between the state policy in the independent cultural field, shifting the emphasis from the publishing-printing stage of book creation to the creative stage. The prospective goal of the project is to promote the creation of significant and lasting texts, thus contributing to the development of fiction and social sciences. The grant programme is going to be recurrent and will fund projects on an annual basis. Another programme “Armenian literature in translations” established in 2016 is aimed at supporting and promoting Armenian-language literature throughout the world. The programme provides support to foreign publishing houses that expressed a desire to publish Armenian classical or modern literature in a foreign language in their country. The foreign publishing houses can get acquainted with the procedure and schedule for submitting an application for funding at the website “armlit.am”.
With the support of the RA Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports, Armenia hosts a separate booth at international book exhibitions and festivals (including: Minsk, Paris, Almaty, London, Tehran, Thessaloniki, Warsaw, New York, Moscow, Gothenburg, Frankfurt, Los Angeles, Bologna, Moscow, Leipzig, etc.,) and organizes its own book festivals. Ensuring equal competition in the Armenian book publishing market and development of copyright and related rights laws and policies are the key issues for the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of the Republic of Armenia. To handle them properly, meetings with publishers, agents, and writers are regularly organized.
In the field of Print and electronic media, special support is provided to ethnic minorities by the programme financing the coverage of community culture, cultural events, and public life in the print and electronic media published in Armenia. Thanks to the project, ethnic minorities are able to preserve and develop their national language, folklore, culture, and traditions.
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