Karine Pansa. Image: Girassol Brasil Edições
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
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The 2024 Frankfurter Buchmesse: 230,000 Visitors Overall
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IPA Confirms and Names Next Leadership, Members, Chairs
‘The Strength and Impact of Our Organization’
Among the most familiar and welcoming faces to trade visitors arriving at Frankfurter Buchmesse this week, São Paulo’s Karine Pansa of Girassol Brasil Edições is hearing congratulations from many friends and colleagues as she winds up her term of office as president of the International Publishers Association (IPA).
Gvantsa Jobava of Tbilisi’s Intelekti Publishing, who has been IPA’s vice-president for two years, will start 2025 as president, and Milan’s Giovanni Hoepli of Hoepli Publishing House steps into the vice-presidential role, as we reported on September 26, following the IPA’s annual general assembly.
Always quick with a laugh but also clearly invested, personally and seriously, in the issues and goals her presidency has embraced, Pansa is quick to remind well-wishers that she’s not quite at the point of that well-deserved rest yet.
Not only is Pansa engaged in multiple events this week in Frankfurt, but the biennial IPA International Publishers Congress in Guadalajara is coming up on December 3 to 6, led by Hugo Setzer of Editorial El Manual Moderno, himself a former IPA president, of course, and now the president of the Mexican Publishers Association, CANIEM.
In fact, it was Setzer’s two-year term that saw the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic arrive, and it was the term held by Bodour Al Qasimi, that would witness publishing’s encounter with the pandemic’s impact. Pansa’s term has been about moving the recovery forward and defining the evolved landscape on which the international book business now operates. And as she concludes her service with the new year, the 128-year-old association will see its roster rise to a new level of 105 members based in 84 nations.
We open our exchange with Pansa by asking what—after such a complex and successful two years for the organization—she sees as the issues or tasks or challenges she feels the best about?
“I truly believe that our collective influence and commitment make IPA an indispensable force in shaping the future of publishing on a global scale.”Karine Pansa
Karine Pansa: “That’s such a big question. I guess I’ll leave the presidency feeling even more impressed by the role of publishers around the world in their local cultural and economic environments. Everywhere I’ve been, you can see the engagement on key issues and when you look at IPA’s work, you see the committees in action, you can see the sector sharing best practices, working together.
That bodes well for the future, especially when it comes to copyright and generative AI or the freedom to publish.
As president of IPA, I feel immense pride and confidence in the strength and global impact of our organization. IPA has consistently stood as a cornerstone for publishers worldwide, advocating for freedom to publish and to protect copyright. I truly believe that our collective influence and commitment make IPA an indispensable force in shaping the future of publishing on a global scale.
Publishing Perspectives: Is there a task or challenge or goal that you’ve felt didn’t come along as well as you’d hoped? This may not be anybody’s fault, of course.
Karine Pansa: I think we did a great job on data, working with both WIPO [the World Intellectual Property Organization] and Nielsen to bring together a broad range of indicators. But what that exercise showed us was that the markets that are the data black holes will require a longer term approach.
That work has started but will go beyond my presidency.
Publishing Perspectives: Were there any issues or challenges that completely surprised you?
Karine Pansa: I really feel that these last two years have been dominated by discussions over generative artificial intelligence. We had been discussing text and data mining for years—the scanning of books by Google is old news—but then this new confluence of pirated scanned books being used to train these impressive statistical writing tools really drove the conversation everywhere we went.
You can see the opportunities for improving parts of our business, but you can also see one of the foundations of business—copyright—being flouted. When I spoke at the opening of Guadalajara International Book Fair last year, I shared IPA’s position that transparency is essential and that use of our works should be paid for. The reaction from the audience was immediate. That is what they wanted to hear and they wanted to hear their international federation defending their interests strongly.
‘The Big Issues That Affect Us All’
Publishing Perspectives: Having seen this long-running organization from the vantage point of its highest elected office, is it possible to say what strikes you now as IPA’s greatest strength or biggest advantage?
Related article: IPA Confirms and Names Next Leadership, Members, Committee Chairs
Karine Pansa: IPA’s greatest strength by far is its network of members around the world and our ability to convene the broader sector.
Our joint statement this year, alongside international organizations for authors, booksellers, and libraries around the ‘trinity of freedoms’—the freedom of expression, the freedom to read, the freedom to publish—was a testament to the work of all of the organizations to come together around the big issues that affect us all.
The same applies to our work around the Sustainable Development Goals [the United Nations’ SDGs]. Our biggest challenges require us to work together, and we see that in the interest for IPA membership, next year we will grow to 105 members from 84 countries.
Publishing Perspectives: And in terms of that capacity for “convening the broader sector,” is there an area in which you’d like to see the organization make progress?—some area in which it might help for that membership to come together, as you’re describing? In the past, we’ve spoken, of course, about your keen understanding of the problems of coherent data for creating really valuable assessments and inventories of publishing’s activities and needs.
Karine Pansa: Yes, and having spoken about the issues around industry data, one other area in which we could make more progress is in our work around literacy and reading, which links to so many other areas of what we do.
The freedom to read. The higher-level reading promoted by the Ljubljana Manifesto. I was so honored to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Development Bank for Latin America and the Caribbean to launch an Ibero-American movement in favor of the promotion of books and reading. The development of that showed how much governments recognize not only the importance of reading to their citizens but also to their future societies—in cultural and economic terms. I’m sure we can build on that for other regions.
Related article: Brazilian Publishers: Upbeat on Business at Frankfurter Buchmesse: Image: Publishing Perspectives, Talita Facchini
Publishing Perspectives: And while it’s too early for you to make a full review of your term of office, are there a couple moments or events or projects that you’ll recall with special fondness?
Karine Pansa: Well, although it was as vice-president, when I chaired the programming committee for the 33rd International Publishers Congress in Jakarta, it was a great thing to see it all come together in Jakarta after so many hours of work, through COVID, over Zoom and the committee’s 12-hour time differences.
I can’t wait to see the 34th International Publishers Congress in Guadalajara later this year.
As president, I’ve been fortunate to share so many special moments with members in different countries, but I think it’s the times when we see our collective efforts rewarded—the case by publishers and the Association of American Publishers (AAP) in the USA against the Internet Archive, the copyright bills in South Africa—these are the moments when the long-term work of engaging with members pays off and is the most rewarding.
More from Publishing Perspectives on the International Publishers Association is here, more on the IPA’s biennial International Publishers Congress series is here, and more on the UN Sustainable Development Goals and related programs and initiatives in book publishing is here.
Publishing Perspectives is the International Publishers Association’s world media partner.
This interview first was read in our 2024 Frankfurt Book Fair Magazine. You can download a free copy of the magazine read by trade visitors at Frankfurter Buchmesse here.
Our 2024 Frankfurt Book Fair Magazine is now available in a digital edition here.
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