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OSSREA Participates in ZIBF 2002
The events of this year’s Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF 2002) took place in two venues: Cape Town (South Africa) and Harare (Zimbabwe). The Cape Town event marked the culmination of a three-year pan-African Project to come up with a list of ‘Africa’s 100 best books in the 20th Century’. The selected books were announced earlier in Accra, Ghana, in February 2002. Cape Town hosted the awards presentation ceremony, the indaba on the “Impact of African Writing on World Literature”, and an international exhibition of publications from different regions. The events in Cape Town were held from 25th – 28th July 2002, but OSSREA was unable to attend these events.
The regular ZIBF events took place in Harare from 28th July to 3rd August 2002. OSSREA was represented at the Harare ZIBF events by Prof. Abdel Ghaffar M. Ahmed, OSSREA’s Executive Secretary; Dr. Taye Assefa, Publications Officer; and Ms. Helina Girmachew, Documentalist.
Three major tasks were accomplished by OSSREA during ZIBF 2002:
1. Exhibiting and selling OSSREA publications;
2. Participating in some of the indaba programmes;
3. Arranging for the regular distribution of OSSREA publications in Zimbabwe.
OSSREA’s stand was visited by some 120 book-lovers and a number of OSSREA publications were sold during this occasion. However, both the number of visitors checking at OSSREA’s stand and the publications sold were less than last year’s ZIBF partly because most international participants of ZIBF appear to have chosen to go to Cape Town rather than Harare.
OSSREA attended the APNET workshop on “Print On Demand”. This was a very interesting and timely workshop as it introduced publishers to a promising new approach that could enable them to have their publications produced for markets abroad at very minimal additional cost. OSSREA is planning to explore this possibility further so that it can cater to international demands while cutting on the cost of freight, insurance, customs, warehouse, etc., to send its local publications to its international distributor in the UK, the African Books Collective.
During the ZIBF 2002, OSSREA made a preliminary agreement with Prestige Books to have its publications regularly distributed in Zimbabwe. Prestige Books, which has its own offices and warehouse in Harare, has extensive experience in and network for the supply of educational materials and books for the local market. It currently represents major publishers such as Heinemann International, Cambridge University Press, Sub-Saharan Press, Africa World Press, World Bank Publications, Oxfam Publications and Blackwell Book Services, among others.