(ANS – Rome) – Salesian Publishers from across Europe, from St Petersburgh in Russia to Sliema in Malta, from Celbridge in Ireland to Lviv in The Ukraine, 18 in all, met in Rome at the Generalate from 1-4 March 2012 to consider how best to deal with a changing Europe, a changing global culture, and to remain in the vanguard of their profession, while undergoing inevitable restrictions due to the Euro crisis and world economic downturn generally.

It was a positive response of the Salesian Congregation based on the conviction that Don Bosco regarded publishing as a lynchpin of his efforts at education and evangelisation.

The 26 people present (including members of the Communications Department, translators) listened intensely as Dr Marco Romano, a Linked Data expert who has worked with the European Space Agency, explained the importance of each publisher linking into a European and worldwide 'Salesian' pool of public data, the result of which will be a much enhanced visibility with powerful commercial benefits.

The representatives of the Publishing Houses present agreed to enter into close cooperation amongst themselves and have set up a protected digital space within which they can explore projects together and share their forward planning. They considered issues such as piracy, and sensible proactive strategies to overcome it, and explored new digital directions (other than linked data) through ebooks and apps.  Using the upcoming Don Bosco's Birth Bicentenary and the Project for Europe as particular points of common endeavour, the Publishing Houses have adopted strategies which will see them involved in a range of common products and projects towards those ends.

Fr Filiberto Gonzalez, the Social Communications General Councillor for the Congregation, listed the main challenges for Salesian Publishing worldwide today, especially the need for a change of mentality from individual effort to team effort, from regional to continental thinking. He urged them to renew human resources, aim at self-financing, transparency and solidarity, and encouraged them to move into a clear phase of technological updating along with the time of rapid development we are in. Fr Filiberto also acknowledged the importance of each publishing endeavour being part of an overall Province plan and receiving strong support from the Province.

By way of response, the representatives of the Publishing Houses present indicated that this meeting was the best they had attended thus far and gave them fresh impetus to tackle the challenges ahead.

Published 07/03/2012