Publishing is an activity in the field of culture and ideology, directly contributing to building the cultural and intellectual foundation for society, protecting the ideological foundation, building the ethics and lifestyle of Vietnamese people. The explosion of science and technology is a great opportunity but also poses many challenges, requiring changes for the publishing industry to survive and develop.
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| Knowledge from the treasure trove of books contributes to nurturing human qualities, intelligence and development. |
Significant growth in scale and number of publications
The year 2025 marks the 20-year journey of implementing Directive No. 42-CT/TW of the 9th Party Central Committee Secretariat on "Improving the comprehensive quality of publishing activities". This is one of the important documents clearly demonstrating the Party's strategic vision for the publishing sector - a particularly sharp tool on the ideological and cultural front, actively contributing to the work of building and protecting the Party's ideological foundation, fighting against false and hostile arguments and enriching the spiritual and cultural life of the people.
In recent years, publishing activities have developed rapidly, gradually adapting to the market mechanism, meeting the increasingly high and diverse needs of readers, actively contributing to the dissemination of the Party and State's guidelines and policies, improving people's knowledge, developing the economy and culture... Many valuable books have been published. The fields of political - social, science - technology - technology books and books for youth and teenagers are quite rich and diverse. The quality of textbooks has been gradually improved in both content and form. The direction and management of publishing has made progress, focusing on ensuring the political - ideological orientation and economic efficiency of publishing activities, detecting, correcting and overcoming deviations and violations.
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| Publishing activities meet the increasing and diverse needs of readers. |
According to the report of the Central Propaganda and Mass Mobilization Commission, in the period 2004-2024, the Vietnamese publishing industry has made great strides in terms of scale and quantity of publications, while diversifying publishing forms with the rapid development of electronic publishing and audiobooks. Currently, there are nearly 600 million copies of books each year, bringing the average number of books per person per year from 2.1 copies in 2004 to nearly 6 copies in 2024. If in 2004, the entire publishing industry had about 24,000 titles, this number has increased each year, fluctuating from 38,000-40,000 titles. Although the ratio of books per person per year is slower than the set target, the publishing industry has met the needs of the reading public.
Comrade Nguyen Trong Nghia - Member of the Politburo , Secretary of the Party Central Committee, Head of the Central Propaganda and Mass Mobilization Commission, emphasized that the highest goal of publishing is to serve the people, foster the qualities, intelligence and aspirations for development of the Vietnamese people. Not only carrying cultural values, publishing products must also be the center for providing scientific knowledge for many fields.
Development orientation in the digital age
Celebrating the 73rd anniversary of the Traditional Day of the Vietnamese Publishing, Printing and Book Distribution Industry (October 10, 1952 - October 10, 2025), at the scientific workshop "Orientation for the development of Vietnamese publishing in the digital age", Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Minh Tuan - Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Communist magazine, Chairman of the Vietnam Publishing Association, shared that entering the 21st century, the explosion of science and technology has been profoundly changing all areas of social life, including the publishing industry. Digital technology opens up enormous opportunities to innovate the editing, publishing, distribution processes, expand the market, increase interaction with readers, and spread Vietnamese culture to the world. These advances have fundamentally changed the method of producing, storing and disseminating knowledge, opening up the digital age, the age of open knowledge and global connectivity. This transformation puts the Vietnamese publishing industry in front of great opportunities and enormous challenges.
The change in readers' information access behavior - from reading printed books to reading on mobile devices, from linear to interactive reception - requires comprehensive reform of content, form and distribution methods.
Mr. Nguyen Canh Binh - Chairman of the Board of Directors of Alpha Books has given a new definition of Publishing in the digital age: in the past, Publishing was about making a book; today, it is about creating a learning journey - personalized, interactive and widespread. From a single product, the content in a book can now develop into "6-10 derivative products from an original content", such as: ebooks, audio, reviews, flash cards...
Faced with the need for rapid, sustainable development and modernization of the publishing sector, Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Minh Tuan said that it is necessary to amend and supplement the 2012 Publishing Law to suit the practical development of the industry, especially the trend of digital transformation and international integration. It is necessary to unify and synchronize the system of legal documents under the law such as decrees, circulars and specialized guidance regulations. There needs to be a clear differentiation in the orientation policies and specific instructions for each type of publishing: political-ideological publishing, science-education, culture-arts, digital publishing, electronic publishing... Each type needs to have its objectives, quality criteria, production organization methods and requirements for censorship and content control in accordance with its own characteristics and the nature of serving politics and society.
In addition, it is necessary to establish State-managed publishing support funds, on the basis of selecting focused, key, transparent and effective investments. At the same time, the policy of socializing publishing activities needs to be promoted more strongly. In addition, it is necessary to strongly promote the digital transformation process throughout the industry, from editing, publishing, distribution to reaching readers. Building a national publishing industry database is an urgent requirement, aiming to digitize the entire publishing warehouse, integrate information on copyright, archiving, publishing statistics... to serve the management, research and access of users...
In the digital age, publishing activities must still maintain their humanistic nature and political-ideological orientation, while at the same time constantly creating and innovating to become a key cultural industry, contributing to building a national knowledge foundation and spreading Vietnamese values to the world.
Article and photos: PHUONG THU
Source: https://baovinhlong.com.vn/van-hoa-giai-tri/202510/khong-gian-rong-mo-cho-nganh-xuat-ban-54203c2/
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