 Among our six honorees this year is Ian Lucein Randle, the chairman of Ian Randle Publishers Ltd, a company he founded in 1990 as the Caribbean’s first commercial scholarly publishing company. Mr Randle will be conferred with the LLD and will address graduates of the Faculty of Engineering and Law at the ceremony on October 24. He shared some thoughts on publishing in the region with editor, Vaneisa Baksh.
VB: What drew you into publishing?
IR: I was not so much drawn into publishing as much as I fell into it by accident. At the start it was just a job that was offered to me towards the end of my undergraduate studies at UWI, Mona and I simply stuck with it. And even when I took a break after five years to do graduate studies, publishing literally pursued me as I was head-hunted to set up Heinemann in the Caribbean and the rest, as they say, is history. It is therefore not without good reason that I have been described as the “accidental publisher”!
VB: What has been the most satisfying aspect for you?
IR: I suppose I would say it is the creation of something where nothing really existed before. True, there was some publishing taking place, but it was uncoordinated and unsustained: the odd book here, the odd book there. Today after one generation we have a regional publishing industry with many practitioners and as for myself, there is the legacy of a few hundred books and the self-confidence given to writers which is something for a younger generation to build on.
VB: What has been the most disappointing?
IR: For me the most disappointing aspect of the publishing experience is that I/we have failed to develop the profile and appeal of the industry to make it an attractive career option for bright young Caribbean graduates from ALL disciplines. Publishing still remains the Cinderella of the creative industries in that it has failed to impress its creative, business and career potential on financiers, support organizations, the media and would-be career seekers. We have, except in a few instances, failed to attract bright entrepreneurs to inject capital and fresh ideas and the units that make up our regional industry still bear the marks of the individuals who created them, threatening their sustainability beyond the lifespan of those individuals.
VB: Given the Caribbean’s literary history, has the publishing industry developed sufficiently?
IR: The Caribbean’s literary history is one of writing, or if you will, literary production, not one of publishing or even reading! That history was built on a tradition of writers being exposed and published by metropolitan houses in Britain and North America and their works being introduced to audiences in those countries. It was therefore natural for a new generation of writers of the post-independence era to continue to seek solace in the arms of the metropolitan publishers. Our local industry has not developed along those original literary lines because of that tradition but more tellingly because of the size of our markets and its attendant small readership numbers but also for economic reasons. It is no accident therefore that the most significant development has taken place in the area of educational publishing, where the economies of scale allow local publishers to successfully produce and sell books in numbers that make their businesses viable.
VB: How threatening are new forms of online publishing and reading to traditional print formats?
IR: There is no question that traditional print formats are under severe threat from new electronic methods and Caribbean publishers are no less threatened as many are beginning to realize. While I do not think the printed book as we have come to know and love it, will die, it will certainly not continue to have the monopoly it has had from the 15th century when Johannes Gutenberg invented mechanical movable type that ushered in the printing process. And why should it? No one shed any tears when the old vinyl record became obsolete and along with them the record player and the juke box; the cassette player had a relatively short life after cassettes were superseded by CDs and today the DVD and its accompanying player are fast becoming old technology both for music and film. The music and the film have not died but the methods by which we access them have died several deaths. Books are not very different. The answer for us publishers is to redefine our concept of the book to incorporate the increasing variety of modes and formats in which the modern reader or researcher has available and to see the book (grudgingly) as simply one variety among those formats. To do less is to threaten our own survival.
VB: What would you say has been your biggest contribution?
IR: Simply put, it has been to allow us to tell our own story. For all of our recorded history, what we have known about ourselves as Caribbean people, including our history, our culture, who we are and so forth, has been written about and published by others. My generation and all others before, were educated on assumptions and perceptions based on research and writings that did not include our input. By giving voice to our researchers and writers I believe I have contributed to the re-education both of a past generation, also of the current one and all others to come. It is a process that cannot be reversed and its value one that cannot be fully computed. Above that, a contribution to the enhancement of human knowledge is the highest possible calling and the most satisfying achievement.
VB: What does the honorary degree mean to you?
IR: It is first and foremost a validation and recognition by others of the value of my life’s work. I have been the recipient of a Jamaica National Honour the Order of Jamaica (OD) and more recently an International award as a Prince Claus laureate for 2012. I consider the UWI honorary degree a regional honour, and in many respects it is the one I value most. Why? Because although I am a proud Jamaican I have always seen myself as operating a Caribbean company based in Jamaica. And to receive the honorary degree at the St Augustine campus is doubly gratifying because it is for me, a recognition of the specific Trinidad and Tobago publishing I have done, not to mention the regional dimension of my publishing.
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