The International Publishers Association has held its general assembly, to name new officers and committee assignments, effective January 1.

From left: The International Publishers Association’s incoming president Gvantsa Jobava; the IPA’s outgoing president Karine Pansa; and the incoming vice-president Giovanni Hoepli

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

IPA Membership Rises to 105 Associations, 84 Countries

Giovanni Hoepli of Milan’s Hoepli Publishing House has been named the new vice-president-elect, succeeding Jobava in the new year. A point of timing that won’t be lost on Publishing Perspectives readers who follow the IPA’s work is that when Hoepli assumes the role of vice-president in January, the association’s tradition suggests that he will then be in line for the presidency two years later.

This will then mean that a part of the energy behind the upcoming Guest of Honor Italy program at Frankfurter Buchmesse (October 16 to 20) will be the introduction of a stalwart Italian publisher as a figure likely to be president of IPA by 2027. The publishing house of which he is vice-president, Hoepli, was founded in 1870 and owns an historic bookstore in Milan in the Via Ulrico Hoepli.

This was the last meeting as president for São Paulo’s Karine Pansa of Girassol Brasil Edições Ltda.

Her two remarkably energetic years as IPA vice-president and two years as president have bridged the challenging period during which world publishing was most acutely engaged in the impact and aftermath effects of the international coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.

Membership and Officers

Online elections were held earlier this month, ahead of today’s general assembly, so that new membership and committee leadership news could be announced in today’s annual general assembly.

Members of the International Publishers Association are national-market publishers’ associations, and it weas announced that as of January 1, the IPA’s membership will rise to 105 members based in 84 nations. The notes below are on factors going into effect with the new year.

Membership

• Guatemala: Asociación Gremial de Editores de Guatemala (AGEG) becomes a new full member

Provisional Membership

Membership Committee

• Halldor Birgisson (Iceland)
• Christie Henry (USA)

Special thanks were offered to Youngsuk ‘YS’ Chi (USA), Yumiko Hoshiba (Japan) and Patrici Tixis (Spain), who are concluding their terms of service on the Executive Committee at the end of December, and to Maria A. Pallante and Anna Baijars, who will be leaving the Membership Committee after years of dedication.

Commentary From the Meeting

In today’s proceedings, the outgoing president, Pansa, told participants, “Publishing is so important for our societies, for our economies, and for our cultures.

Karine Pansa

“What an honor it has been to represent this wonderful industry. Gvantsa Jobava is going to be a great president for IPA and I can’t wait to see how she will drive the IPA forward.”

Pansa went on to point out that, “This is not goodbye yet, I still have a couple of months as IPA president and as you have heard we have a busy end to the year.” She offered special thanks to Bodour Al Qasimi, whom Pansa succeeded as president; to her support people in Brazil, Ana Claudia and Luiz Alvaro; to Sevani Mattos and others in the Brazilian Book Chamber; to IPA staffers James Taylor, Olivier Borie, and to IPA executive director José Borghino.

And Pansa left the general assembly’s session today with a warning about the requirement for vigilance, saying, in part:

• “We all know that what we do for our societies, for our economies, for our cultures, is so important, but we have to work harder at communicating that importance to policymakers at national and international level.
• “We need more data on our sector. We need to strengthen our members in developing markets – in our internationally connected world we only need poor copyright legislation in one market for all of us to be weakened.
• “Publishers around the world look up to us—our position on generative artificial intelligence and the joint statement on the trinity of freedoms—drive positions in many of our member countries. Those two documents capture the essence of our pillars of copyright and the freedom to publish in a way that looks forward and helps our members in their interactions with their own policy makers.
• “There is a Brazilian author, Jorge Amado, who says, ‘Life itself is a permanent struggle, and it takes courage to face everyday life.’ This is our everyday life. We will need to remain ever vigilant. We will need to fight every day, together, to preserve the pillars of the book industry, the pillars of the IPA.”

‘Our Obligation to Society Is Great’

Jobava, the incoming president, said to the IPA membership, “I’d like to thank Karine Pansa, president of IPA, for her professionalism, collegiality, and friendship.

Gvantsa Jobava

“As IPA’s new president, I will be asking our members what more can we do to safeguard our courageous colleagues and authors, whose freedom is limited in many parts of the world and whose lives are in danger?

“What more can we do to see that copyright is respected by the technology giants and enforced by our legislators?

“Our obligation to society is great. I look forward to working with all IPA’s members to fulfil it.”

Giovanni Hoepli

‘Collaboration Is Key’

Hoepli, the incoming vice-president, spoke as well, saying, “Thanks to all IPA members for engaging in these elections, for being involved in guiding our association.

“I’m grateful to all of you for the effort each of you has put in. Looking ahead, our future challenges will also require us to work together.

“Collaboration is key, and I invite everyone to be ready to continue this journey as a team.”

 A point of timing that won’t be lost on Publishing Perspectives readers who follow the IPA’s work is that Hoepli—the new member of the three-person transition team of IPA officers—is being praised this morning by Innocenzo Cipolletta, president of  the Association of Italian Publishers (Associazione Italiana Editori, AIE), who says, “My best wishes to Giovanni Hoepli, whose experience and ability to build international relationships we at AIE are well aware of.

Innocenzo Cipolletta

“His election as vice-president of IPA, after Ricardo Franco Levi’s appointment as president of the Federation of European Publishers in 2022, is also a new recognition of the authority of Italian publishing and the contribution that our association makes within international organizations.

“A publishing industry that is listened to around the world and appreciated for its work will be the one we are presenting in a few days at the Frankfurter Buchmesse 2024 where Italy is Guest of Honor.”

At AIE, Hoepli is a member of the general council and since 2015, he has been a delegate from AIE to IPA’s general assembly, a member of the Copyright Committee since 2016, and a member of the Membership Committee, which he chairs, since 2021.

Keynote Address: Miha Kovač

Slovenia’s Miha Kovač, familiar to our readership as one of the creators of the Ljublijana Reading Manifesto, gave today’s general assembly’s keynote address, which you can review in this video, courtesy of IPA:

And the Colombian copyright and intellectural property attorney Fernando Zapata gave the second keynote, also provided to us by IPA:

Programming Notes

A series of events at Frankfurter Buchmesse will feature many of the IPA’s programs and people. You can see a quick guide to them at Publishing Perspectives here. As part of those plans, we call your attention to a panel discussion from IPA, moderated by Publishing Perspectives:

Speakers:

• Ege Dündar, PEN International
• Felicia Hofmann, social media team leader, dtv Verlag and WEXFO young expert (Germany)
• Jean Poderos, director, Editions Courte et Longues (France)
• Anke Steinecke, executive vice president, Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel, PRH (USA)

• Following Frankfurt, the IPA’s International Publishers Congress is being produced by the Cámara Nacional de la Industria Editorial Mexicana (CANIEM), led by IPA past president Hugo Setzer, and by the Association of American Publishers, led by president and CEO Maria A. Pallante.
• Registration and information can be found here.

More from Publishing Perspectives on the International Publishers Association is here, more on Frankfurter Buchmesse is here, and more on the freedom to publish is here.

Publishing Perspectives is the International Publishers Association’s world media partner.