Deputy Minister of Information and Communications: "Thick books will be displayed high up and rarely touched"

On the morning of July 31, in Hanoi, the Central Propaganda Department coordinated with the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) and the Vietnam Publishing Association to organize a conference on publishing work in the first 6 months of 2024 to evaluate publishing work in the first 6 months of the year and orient some key tasks in the last months of 2024.

Speaking at the conference, Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Thanh Lam said that Vietnamese people spend a lot of time reading books, but most of them only read on their phones.

"One trend that the Ministry of Information and Communications believes will develop is "lean" books.

Books contain a lot of knowledge, but they are too thick. Everyone talks very well, very solemnly, but most thick books are displayed high up, rarely touched," Deputy Minister Lam said, adding that books are knowledge, knowledge shared does not diminish but only increases.

However, there are many books that are donated and then left in the box very solemnly but no one reads them.

Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Thanh Lam speaks at the conference (Photo: Nguyen Hai).

Speaking at the conference, Mr. Phan Xuan Thuy, Deputy Head of the Central Propaganda Department, acknowledged and highly appreciated the results that the publishing industry has achieved in the first 6 months of 2024.

To successfully implement the goal set forth in the Resolution of the 13th National Congress "Organizing the publishing, printing and distribution industry towards streamlining, quality and modernization"; implementing the advice of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, the publishing industry must always maintain its political and ideological orientation, ensure harmony between political tasks and production and business, restore and strongly develop reading culture...

Conference scene (Photo: Nguyen Hai).

Mr. Thuy highlighted 5 contents that need to be implemented in the coming time. In particular, focusing on evaluating and summarizing 20 years of implementing Directive No. 42-CT/TW of the Secretariat on improving the overall quality of publishing activities to promptly advise the Politburo and the Secretariat to issue new documents to replace it, meeting the requirements and tasks of publishing activities in the new situation.

"This is the key political task of the industry from now until the end of the year. We request that agencies and the entire industry closely coordinate, organize, and evaluate according to the plan issued by the Central Propaganda Department," Mr. Thuy emphasized.

In addition, publishers have performed their political tasks well, focused on implementing plans and topics, ensuring focus, highlights, creativity, and innovation in publishing forms to create strong influence to serve the propaganda of Party Congresses at all levels, towards the 14th National Party Congress, continuing to pay attention, invest, and improve the operational capacity of publishing houses, and improve the quality of publications...

In recent times, the Central Propaganda Department, the Ministry of Information and Communications, and the Vietnam Publishing Association have closely coordinated and proactively directed and managed publishing activities; strictly implemented the principle of one focal point in directing and orienting politics, ideology, and publication content; ensuring unified, timely, and convincing direction and orientation.

Accordingly, in the first 6 months of 2024, publishers published 25,150 books with nearly 397.8 million copies. Of which, printed publications reached 23,066 books with more than 370 million copies.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/xa-hoi/thu-truong-bo-tttt-sach-day-se-bay-tren-cao-it-khi-so-vao-20240731134236008.htm