FRANKFURT, GERMANY, 19 October 2015 – In the move to bring local written works from Malaysia, more so on studies and researches done by Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) researchers to the international level, USM has signed four Memorandums of Agreement (MoA) with strategic partners to market the publications of Penerbit USM (USM Publisher) at the global level, signed at the Frankfurter Buchmesse (Frankfurt Book Fair) beginning from 14-18 October 2015.

The four MoAs were signed between USM with EBSCO Publishing and ProQuest, the vast content repository storing digital content from all over the world, to market the electronic books (ebooks) from Penerbit USM for the global market, as well as the signing of the agreement with Ingram Content Group and PT Buqu Global. 

All documents pertaining to the agreement were signed by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation)  who also served as the Chairperson for USM Publications Committee, Professor Dato’ Dr Muhamad Jantan, representing the USM Vice- Chancellor. 

The ceremony also saw the attendance of the Director of Penerbit USM, Akhiar Salleh together with a few officials from Penerbit USM, who manned the exhibition at the Frankfurt Book Fair. 

According to Muhamad in his speech at the agreement-signing ceremony with ProQuest, the aim of entering the international digital publication market through a company established in the United States of America was to increase the visibility of the written works, the authors and USM at the world stage. 

The Senior Manager of EBSCO, Mari Bergeron expressed her delight as USM has chosen EBSCO to be the strategic partner in the marketing of digital publications. 

She added, other than the distinction and the uniqueness of the written works, sales of ebooks too would depend on the strength of the metadata provided by the publishers to her company, as the metadata would serve as the catalyst for the visibility of any title in cyberspace. 

Senior Vice-President and General Manager of ProQuest, Kevin Sayar meanwhile said Penerbit USM was the first publisher from Malaysia and from the region to successfully establish cooperation on the marketing of ebooks with ProQuest. 

The MoA with Ingram Content Group next was for the marketing of printed materials in the Print on Demand(POD) format and published by Penerbit USM for the international market. 

The Marketing Manager for Ingram Content Group Andrew Bromley then said, with the availability of such a service, printed books which have been initially ordered would be sent directly by the network printer, which is Ingram–Lightning Source to the customers within a week, depending on the customer’s base or location. 

Ingram has 39,000 outlets and a library that subscribes to its services throughout the world. 

Penerbit USM too was finalising its discussions to market the ebooks through Ingram–CoreSource, which has 260 distributors for digital publications worldwide. 

USM also stamped an agreement with PT Buqu Global to market ebooks for the international market. 

The CEO of PT Buqu Global, Erlan Primansyah said that this cooperation would solve the problem of penetrating into the Indonesian market for printed books faced previously by publishers in Malaysia. 

Added Akhiar, Penerbit USM has become the leader in ebooks in Malaysia, especially among the publishers from the higher educational institutions (UA) in venturing aggressively into the international market since the end of 2014. 

Currently, more than 150 book titles and 120 issues of journals in the ePub format have been successfully produced. The published books can be purchased through portals such as Amazon.com, Google Play (Book), Barnes & Noble, Apple Store and a few other well-known ebook portals, including the locally-established eSentral and BachaBooku. 

"All the ebooks are distributed through an aggregator (electronic book distributor) such as Trajectory, Kobo, Google Play, OverDrive and Xentral Methods," said Akhiar. 

Text :Edited by Mohamad Abdullah

Photos: Akhiar Salleh

Translation: Mazlan Hanafi Basharudin