The meeting for promoting reading and organizing the publication process was held by the cultural secretary of Tehran 11th district municipality this morning March 10.

IBNA: This meeting was held in presence of Jafar Ebrahimi (Children writer), Mohammad Reza Tavakol (manager of Saberin publication), Fatemeh Kenarsari (Cultural Expert of the ministry of culture) and Mahmoudi (The head of IT library). Parictical programs in the field of books and promoting the culture of reading were two of the issues discussed in the meeting.

In this meeting Jafar Ebrahimi referred to the decrease of the number of the copies published as an indiciation of the decrease in the number of readers and said: In the beginning of the Revolution each book was printed in 20 to 30 thousand copies in each print-run. This number reached 50 thousand in some of the books published by Kanoon. Now the highest number of published books is 3 thousand and in Kanoon 5 thousand.

He added: At that time the people of Iranian society had faced a great change and in order to find the answers the read books. Nowadays the officials should create those questions for people. Even though the level of literacy has increased dramatically in the past 30 years the number of readers has decreased.

He said: Another problem is the wrong methods of teaching at home and at school. At home and at school children are not encouraged to do reading as a joyous experience. The teachers do not take the composition classes seriously and by giving boring topics to children kill their enthusiasm for reading and writing and their creativity.

Ebrahimi also said: books in the school libraries are chosen by the teachers and children are deprived of the right of selecting their own books. Then, with spending a lot of money and energy, they try to interest the pupils in reading after they had killed their sense of interest.

The next speaker was Mahmoudi who referred to the important role of families saying: The first effective factor in education is reading, what is taught in childhood will never be forgotten.

Mahmoudi also referred to the important role of librarians saying: Librarians can influence the people's reading by suggesting the new titles of different genres to them. Their knowledge of books can help visitors find their needed books.

Mohamamd Reza Tavakol said: The ministry of Culture is not the sole responsible institute for promoting reading, we all are. The developed countries are those countries whose people read a lot.

Tavakol added: When the number of copies published is not much and the people active in publishing and printing business have almost not financial profit, they are forced to give up. Another problem is displaying books. Many publishers cannot display their books and introduce their new titles to the reading public.

He referred to Tehran International Book Fair saying: The number of visitors indicates people's interest in books but book distribution is constantly facing problems and that is why there has been no increase in the number of bookshops. To solve their financial problems many bookshops that are still active have been forced to sell stationary beside their books.

The final speaker was Fatemeh Kenarsari, the cultural expert of the ministry of culture. She said: We support the publishers before and after the publication of their books. First we help them publish the books and then after the publication we buy a number of copies. If anyone has a practical suggestion for solving these problems we receive his suggestions with open arms and support them.

Id : 64689