Third Annual Conference of the Editing and Publication Association of Bangladesh
ABSTRACT
The process of automation in Bangladesh began with the installation of a computer at the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Centre in 1964. Since then, the concept of automated communication and information management has gained ground, though a bit slowly during the subsequent years, in the country. During the past few years, personal-computer use has
tremendously increased in Bangladesh due to the vigorous, constructive and concerted efforts made by electronic-based professionals. It is now apparent that Bangladesh is gradually moving to adopt the concept of electronic communication in dissemination and transmission of message and information on various issues, products, and publications like many other developing countries, e.g. India, Thailand, and Indonesia. At present, major national
organizations, particularly those located in Dhaka city, use computers and emails, and can access international databases through the Internet information system. Many have developed own websites to market their image, information, and products. Despite these developments, Bangladesh is still lagging far behind in putting its marketable publications and products in the Internet for their fast and wider dissemination, and do business through electronic commerce.
On the other hand, developed countries are making efforts to promote information and knowledge widely, and many freely, available. Electronic commerce, a part of electronic communication and business management, is increasingly becoming popular all over the world. Publishers of developed countries, particularly the industrialized nations, nowadays extensively use the facility of Internet to market and disseminate their periodical publications, monographic materials, reference information and books, and variety of other knowledge-based products, and earn considerable revenue through this latest automated business-communication mechanism. Whereas Bangladesh is still in its infancy in this venture. Here access to the international information system through the Internet is highly slow, and a considerable time is wastage to get access. There are impediments and limitations. On the other hand, it seems that the country is in the dilemma of taking or not taking the advantage of vast opportunities the electronic communication system offers. Reasons for not stepping into this business are many and genuine considering the impediments and IT environment prevalent in the country. Mass adoption of electronic communication is still a dream for the country, particularly for the rural population, although it has a high demand. There is also a strong need to make a firm and dedicated decision to ensure that an appropriate environment »n the country for facilitating the use of electronic communication to disseminate information, market products and publications, and earn revenue through electronic commerce. Some of the major problems and obstacles that are hindering the growth of the electronic publication business in the country through the Internet have been specifically reviewed in the paper. The paper also suggests and highlights steps that need to be taken to popularize the electronic communication for speedy dissemination of information, papers, and publications produced in the country, marketing them electronically all over the world, and earning substantial revenue as the developed world and the industrialized nation do.
INTRODUCTION
The automation process in Bangladesh began with the installation of a second-generation computer at the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Centre in 1964. Since then, computers have been used by various organizations, particularly beginning with large financial, industrial and utility organizations. Automation of office work, financial system, and information resources has found its entry into the country during the subsequent years. Several libraries and information resource centres also started to automate its functions, and began to create databases during the last decade.
As we have observed during the last one-decade, personal computers have gradually been occupying the place of large computers. PCs are now no less powerful than the large computers used in both developed and developed countries. Electronic printers are as well replacing manual and electronic typewriters. Manual system of work is increasingly being taken over by an automated system. The process of automation is being achieved in a faster way than before due to the gradual lowering of prices of computers and relevant equipment and accessories considerably over the years, thereby making them affordable and available to a large number of people even in comparatively poor countries.
During the past few years, personal-computer use has tremendously increased in Bangladesh due to the availability of PCs at a cheaper rate and also due to the vigorous, constructive and concerted efforts made by the information and electronic-based professionals and by the leaders of the Bangladesh Computer Society. Despite this, the automated communication and information-dissemination system could not be promoted to the desired level compared to other developing countries. This paper, therefore, reviews the need of an electronic communication system for the socioeconomic development of Bangladesh. It also highlights the dilemmas in adopting the information technology (IT) in electronic dissemination of information and publications.
Present scenario
In Bangladesh, access to the international information system through the Internet is highly slow, and a considerable time is wasted to get access. There are impediments and limitations in the overall system. Most are related to the economic issues, and the role of the government in solving the problems is paramount. On the other hand, it seems that the country is in the dilemma of taking or not taking the advantage of vast opportunities the electronic communication system offers. Reasons for not stepping into this business are many and genuine considering the impediments and IT environment prevalent in the country. It is, however, noticeable that the government is now gradually recognizing the power of information and electronic communication in socioeconomic growth. The visibility of this change has been observed insignificantly during the recent years, but prominently during the last few months. The government office system is now being automated, and the LAN is being used widely to facilitate faster communications. The visibility can also be noticed when we see the recent efforts and announcements made by the government. Th° government has considerably softened its policies with respect to the use of computer facilities. Some examples are given below.
The government allowed the private companies to install V-SATs and provide ISP services beginning June of 1996. Twenty ISPs are at present have an email user-group of over 30,000 connections. These user-groups are scattered all over the major cities of Bangladesh. The BTTB has also started to provide email services as an ISP. The government has allotted space for creating an IT village. It has permitted offices and organizations to install V-SATs paying a low fee, although the telephonic charges are still high, and the telephones are not readily available.
The government has withdrawn import duties and VAT earlier imposed on computer hardware and software, “This has brought the prices of computers down to a level affordable by middle income households and sales of PCs have soared during the last few months. A 80-90% annual growth in the number of PCs sold is expected this year”, according to Prof. Jamilur Reza Choudhury. At present, major national organizations, particularly those located in Dhaka city, use computers and emails, and can access international databases through the Internet information system. Many have created own websites to promote their image, and market their information and products.
All these exhibit that Bangladesh is gradually moving to adopt the concept of electronic communication in dissemination and transmission of message and information on various issues, products, and publications like many other developing countries, e.g. India, Thailand, and Indonesia. All these are also the indication of the gradual growth of an electronic communication system.
In spite of these positive changes, the country is still lagging far behind in putting its marketable publications and products in the Internet for their fast access and wider dissemination, and do business through electronic commerce. This has not been possible mainly because of the fact that the country lacks necessary or suitable infrastructure to accommodate the developments in the field and to promote electronic communication. Electronic commerce, a part of electronic communication and business management, is increasingly becoming popular all over the world. Whereas it is relatively not known to our business people.
The developed nations, particularly the USA and European countries, are making efforts to promote information and knowledge widely, and many freely, available. Publishers of these countries and other industrialized nations extensively use the facility of Internet to market and disseminate their periodical publications, monographic materials, reference information and books, and variety of other knowledge-based products, and earn considerable revenue through this latest automated business-communication mechanism. Whereas Bangladesh is still in its infancy in this venture. Here this vital business component has been suffering due to non-promotion of its effectiveness and due to the non-availability of skilled and trained personnel to design products for making them more appealing to the customers outside Bangladesh and market these through the Internet. There are several other reasons for this slow progress in disseminating information and publications in the electronic system. Some of them are: (a) the country does not have a clear-cut policy for its promotion, (b) preservation of materials in the electronic system is costly, and (c) the government does not provide the needed resources for its growth and sustainability.
The future needs
Mass adoption of electronic communication and massive dissemination of publication products in electronic formats are still a dream for the country, particularly for the rural population, although it can greatly contribute to improve the economic situation of the country and which has a high demand. It is reported that the USA is earning one-third of its revenues by doing business through the Internet. The information resources of Bangladesh are not accessible by the outside world for various reasons. Information on hard copies does not reach those who need it. Almost 100% of the information resources produced in the country have also not been made available in electronic formats. All these are putting our country into the backdoor position of the information revolution. Within Bangladesh, it is also highly desirable that the important and relevant materials are electronically made available to the vast majority of people who still can not read and are unable to use appropriate knowledge to suit their own requirements. This deficiency in
knowledge and information use demands that we go beyond dissemination of our intellectual knowledge by transforming the required knowledge and information into a form or format that best suits the illiterate people in particular and into the understanding of the common people. Because the vast majority of the country’s population live outside the domain of electronic communication who could be greatly benefitted by the modern and electronic facilities.
It has been observed that PCs are used in the villages for training youths to make them suitable for jobs. Many villages have telephone facilities. The Internet facilities can easily be installed in these villages, and the information resources, relevant to the village people, can be made beneficial to them, provided dedicated efforts are organized. The GrameenPhone has already initiated to provide phones to the grameen people. It is expected that within the next couple of years each village will be able to access to the national grid of the telephone-connectivity system. From the speed of developments we have observed during the last couple of years, it could easily be imagined that the time is not really very far that each village will be able to access to the Internet.
In a recent paper published in The Independent, Prof. Jamilur Reza Choudhury concluded, “Recent developments in information technology have already produced a significant change in the methods of collection, collation, processing, production and dissemination of information in all fields. CDs and other computer readable media are gradually replacing the traditional form of publications in print media. The development of electronic communicating networks, the Internet, World Wide Web and digital libraries, has made it possible for users, even in remote areas of developing countries, to have easy access to information sources round the world.
The popular search engines (e.g. Yahoo, Alta Vista, Lycos, and Infoseek) have made the task of literature search much easier. Efforts should now be directed towards developing our National Information Infrastructure, conversion of documents to computer readable media and providing high speed access to information stored in servers within and outside the country.”
Problems and obstacles that are hindering the growth of the electronic publication business in the country through the Internet need to be identified and solved with highest attention and priority. Vigorous efforts need to be made to popularize the electronic communication for speedy dissemination of information, papers, and publications produced in the country, marketing them electronically all over the world, and earning substantial revenue as the developed and industrialized nations are doing.
Dr. Subbiah Arunachalam says, “We keep hearing about a post-industrial revolution, the electronic or digital revolution that is profoundly affecting the nature of learning and the production of knowledge and transforming the world in unexpected ways.” According to Dr. Peter Drucker, “The current digital revolution is the fourth information revolution in human history.” The 21st century is going to be the age of electronic communication. Knowledge and technology will be borderless, and will be the basis for all appropriate decisions in relation to socioeconomic development of the people. The whole world is going to be intensely closer than ever thought before. Electronic formats will dominate all spheres of life, including education, employment, agricultural and industrial environment, and personal life. This has at least been pointed out by the changes observed in the IT sector during the last 4 decades.
The developments in the field suggest that the society will be automatically propelled to become an information and electronic-based society. All people, either they are literate and illiterate, will be depending on electronic information and communication for all sorts of their activities.
Considering the developments made by the industrialized nations, no body can possibly ignore the remarks made by Prof. Jamilur Reza Choudhury and Prof. Md. Yunus with respect to the road to electronic information dissemination and electronic communication for the benefit of thepeople of Bangladesh at large. Dr. Subbiah Arunachalam opined, “The truth is that the transition from hard copies to electronic publishing, left to itself, will widen the gap between developed countries and developing countries, and will further marginalize the already marginalized scientists and scholars in the South.”
The Administrative Committee of UN, in April 1997, expressed serious concerns about deepening maldistribution, in developing countries, of access, resources and opportunities in the information and communication field. It stated that the information technology gap and related inequities between industrialized and developing nations are widening: a new type of poverty—information poverty—looms. According to the Committee, “Most developing countries, especially Least Developed Countries (LDCs), are not sharing in the communication revolution, since they lack: (a) affordable access to core information resources, cutting edge technology and to sophisticated telecommunication systems and infrastructure; (b) the capacity to build, operate, manage, and service the technologies involved; (c) policies that promote equitable public participation in the information society as both producers smd consumers of information and knowledge; and (d) a work force trained to develop, maintain and provide the value-added products and services required by the information economy. We therefore commit the organizations of the United Nations to assist developing countries in redressing the present alarming trends.”
The above statements suggest to properly conceptualize the real need of the time and to understand the vitality of suggestions made by various personalities in various forums within the context of the IT and economic developments. Otherwise we are likely to loose more and remain still behind compared to the neighbouring countries. If this process of lagging behind continues for the next several years and in a cyclic way, it is also likely that we would be in the grip of permanent knowledge tenancy, and would be fully dependent on the knowledge-domination culture of the developed world. We can not afford to allow for generating such a situation for the country. The time is ripe now, and we must decide to adopt and proceed with a clear and appropriate vision without loosing any more time. We should put all of our information resources in the Internet for easy and fast access and for wider dissemination, and organize our business to earn revenues. There is also an immediate need to make a firm and dedicated decision to ensure an appropriate electronic-communication environment in the country to facilitate the use of Internet to disseminate information, market products and publications, and earn revenue through electronic commerce.
Conclusion
Bangladesh is considered to be one of the poorest countries or the world. Use of IT can make it a powerful and developed nation. Technology is now the property of those who care and use it. To market our products and publications through the Internet, we must put Bangladesh into the strong footing of the electronic table and earn revenue through the electronic medium as others are doing. The marketing and earning wavelength is equally important and critical to both developed and developing countries. To materialize this, it is important to integrate the
scattered efforts of various interest groups, such as information professionals, publication professionals, communication people, the government, learned bodies, academicians, donor organizations, voluntary agencies, and others who are concerned about electronic communication and electronic information dissemination. The Editing and Publication Association of Bangladesh (EPAB), the Library Association of Bangladesh (LAB), and the Bangladesh Computer Society can jointly play a catalyst role in organizing the integration of efforts of all concerned for the prospect of the nation and its people.
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