Describing the gathering as "a reality check" on the state of the industry, the Literature program of the National Endowment for the Arts has issued a report on the discussions of an unprecedented symposium of 30 publishing professionals examining every aspect of the industry. The symposium, called "The Future of Literary Publishing in the United States," was held at the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress in March 1999. The report is posted on the NEA Web site at www.arts. endow.gov.explore/LitPub/contents.html.
Cliff Becker, director of the Literature program, told PW that the report represents an effort under the restructured Literature program to be a "broker between the for-profit and the nonprofit publishing worlds on issues faced by the field."
The symposium discussed the audience for literature, bookselling, libraries, distribution, publishing, writers and philanthropy. The main conclusions to come out of the proceedings, according to Becker, were the need for greater support from private foundations for literary publishing; a call for more research into the makeup of the literary audience; the need for appropriate partnerships between nonprofit and for-profit publishing entities; and praise for audience development programs such as National P try Month and a call for the NEA to support more efforts like it.
Becker also pointed to several Literature program initiatives addressing these issues. The NEA has awarded a $22,000 grant to the American Library Association to begin planning for literature and arts programming to be held at more than 500 libraries throughout the country in 2000, as part of its Millennium Leadership Project. "Libraries are a huge support to all kinds of authors and publishers," said Becker. For the first time, the NEA will host a roundtable on literature at the Grantmakers in the Arts Conference, a gathering of private foundations held annually in San Francisco; the NEA will be nonfinancial co-sponsor of the Book Industry Study Group's 1999/2000 Reading Research Study; and in spring 2000 the Literature program will release an update of its 1989 study of literary reading habits, "Who Reads Literature?"
Participants in the symposium included Jonathan Galassi of FSG, Randall Beek of Consortium, Morgan Entrekin of Grove/Atlantic, Nicolas Kanellos of Arte Publico Press, Patricia Schr der of the AAP, Oren Teicher of the ABA and Susan Benson of Amazon.com.
