By Maung Hlaing
BIRTHDAYS usually are happy occasions. Almost everyone wants to celebrate his or her birthday every year. People celebrate their birthdays by holding family parties, giving presents, visiting friends and attending religious services.
As for the Sarpay Beikman, the edifice which was born of the independence struggles, it is incumbent upon us to hold a ceremonial occasion.
If we cast a glance at a panoramic view of the Sarpay Beikman, we cannot help thinking of Bogyoke Aung San who gave birth to the historic institute – Sarpay Beikman. Now, it has reached 75 years in existence this year.
Sarpay Beikman … Yesterday
“We have to open more craft schools. We must encourage vocational skills and general handicraft skills. We must hold it in our minds to translate important books for the public and useful books for mass production. We must open a translation department. We must send scholars to study abroad”. (An excerpt from the Perspective of the Global New Light of Myanmar, 2 January 2020, P.8.)
The day was 7 June 1947. On that day, Bogyoke Aung San, the architect of Myanmar’s independence delivered a speech at a rehabilitation conference at the Sorrento Villa Building on Pyay Road in Yangon. In order to implement what Bogyoke said, the Sarpay Beikman (Institute) emerged.
The Sarpay Beikman was known until early 1959 as the Burma Translation Society (BTS). In the beginning, the name was translated into English as ‘Palace of Literature’.
Starting essentially as a translation society, Sarpay Beikman has become truly a publishing house with a wide variety of functions. In its early days, although it received occasional government subsidies because of the educational nature of its work, the Sarpay Beikman was not a government department. It was a private, non-political institute governed by a Managing Council.
The institute cooperated with a number of international organizations and philanthropic and, cultural groups from other countries.
During 1952 and 1953, the United States Technical Coop eration Administration provided a Printing Advisor and much of the equipment needed to begin the printing plant. From 1954 to 1956, the Ford Foundation provided, at the institute’s request, an advisor to help map out an overall developmental plan.
In addition to the Senior Advisor, Marketing Advisor, Research Advisor, and Layout and Design Advisor under the Ford Foundation--supported programme ending in 1960, UNESCO provided from 1956 to 1958 a Book Production Specialist. UNESCO fellowships were awarded to certain of the institute’s staff.
In 1957, Sarpay Beikman was host to a four-nation UNESCO Seminar on the production of Reading Materials for the New Reading Audience. A number of UNESCO fellows were sent to the institute for periods of training, and even the Government of Viet Nam sent a team of high-level Ministry of Education officials to study Sarpay Beikman’s work, with a view to starting their own publishing and translation society.
At that time, the Sarpay Beikman was made up of the following divisions and sections:
1. The Editorial Division,
2. The Burmese Encyclopaedia Division,
3. The Popular Science Division,
4. The Textbook Division,
5. Sarpay Beikman Monthly Magazine,
6. The People’s Handbook Series,
7. Children’s Books,
8. The Terms Bank and Editorial Reference Library,
9. The Publications Research Division,
10. The Printing Division,
11. The Printing Plant,
12. The Production Office,
13. The Art Department,
14. The Marketing Division,
15. The General Administration,
16. The Accounts Division,
17. The Motor Transport Section,
18. The Public Relations Division,
19. The Sarpay Beikman Public Library,
20. The Extra-Mural Activities Division.
The Editorial Division
As chief executive, the Council of the Institute designated the Director who was in charge of supervising and coordinating all phases of the Institute’s activities. The editorial programme, in turn, is under the direction of a Chief Editor and a Deputy Chief Editor.
The Burmese Encyclopaedia Division
The completion of the Encyclopaedia was begun in 1949. It was a milestone in Myanmar’s progress towards making world knowledge available to all. Although the compilation of the subject matter for each volume of the Encyclopaedia was done in the division itself, special articles were written by outside scholars and experts. The entire programme is under the advice and guidance of an Encyclopaedia Planning Committee composed of leading scholars, and this committee took an active role in all phases of the compilation of the Encyclopaedia.
The Popular Science Division
The division was to compile, in Myanmar, a Pictorial Encyclopaedia of Popular Science. The name of the Myanmar edition was ‘Ludu Theikpan Kyan’ (Science for the Masses). The purpose of this project was to make the general public science-minded. The books of the Ludu Theikpan Kyan series were printed at Djambatan Ltd., Amsterdam, Holland.
The Textbook Division
The division became the largest educational publisher in Myanmar in producing books for primary and secondary schools, and teachers’ training schools. The Editor and staff members of the Textbook Division were constantly reviewing the books produced by the Institute with a view to bringing out improved editions and providing new titles.
Sarpay Beikman Monthly Magazine
Since 1952, the Institute had published a monthly magazine, appropriately called Sarpay Beikman. The purpose of the magazine was to develop the physical, intellectual, economic, social and moral strengths of the nation. Sarpay Beikman magazine, through the medium of the vernacular language, could seek to narrow the gulf between the people and the outside world.
The People’s Handbook Series
The Series produced small books which were intended to communicate ideas and information effectively so as to bring about changes in the way of life of the rural people and thereby raise their social and economic levels. To make the books more acceptable, they were written in an easy-to-read, entertaining style.
Children’s Books
Two Children’s Series, one for the 4-8-year-old group and a second for the 9-14-year-old group, completed the Institute’s programme for providing trade books for all reading audiences in Myanmar. Two books in each series were released each month, selling for twenty-five pyas a copy. These Children’s Books were developed by the Institute’s author-editors rather than by outside authors.
The Terms Bank and Editorial Reference Library
The Terms Bank and Editorial Reference Library were the two departments that served as important adjuncts to the Editorial Department. The Terms Bank was the section of the Institute which helped the editorial staff translate various subjects into Myanmar. This section generally held four to six sectional meetings each Saturday. The work of the Terms Bank was invaluable not only to the editorial staff of the Institute but also to other authors who wrote in specialized subjects in Myanmar.
The Editorial Reference Library provided both reference and general material for the various divisions. (At that time, there were approximately 7,500 books in English, 4,000 Books in Myanmar, 4,000 magazines and journals and twenty-one general and specialized sets of encyclopaedias in English.)
The Publications Research Division
The division owed its growth to the impetus given by the Educational Publications Study Group sponsored by the Sarpay Beikman. The purpose of the division was two-fold: -
To carry out evaluation studies which would give the Institute an indication as to how effective its books were in communicating ideas to various potential audiences, and
To carry out studies of a fundamental nature which would help all interested in communicating through the mass media in Myanmar to better understand their task.
The division conducted the following two major projects:-
An opinion survey of all-Burma (Myanmar) teachers on textbooks published by the Institute, and
An intensive survey of leisure patterns in Myanmar villages, particularly the reading habits of villagers, with a view to putting this knowledge to use in the Institute’s marketing programme.
Printing Division
The Production Office and Printing Plant played a key role in the development of the Institute and in the success of its mission as an educational publisher. Almost half of the entire Institute staff was occupied with the manufacture of books. Capital investment and budget allocations were naturally the heaviest in this division and included the importation of hundreds of tonnes of paper a year.
The Printing Plant
Between 1949 and 1952, a modest start towards a Sarpay Beikman Printing Plant was made with the local purchase of mainly second-hand equipment. A very welcome opportunity to enlarge printing facilities came in 1952 when the US Government under TCA made available equipment (worth approximately K800,000) to the Institute. It was noteworthy that several plant foremen were sent to the United States and the United Kingdom for training and that a UNESCO Printing Production Specialist arrived in 1956.
The Production Office
The Production Office, conceived and set up with the advice of the UNESCO Specialist, provided better direction and management through all stages of book production. It was headed by the Producing Manager. It included the Sarpay Beikman Art Department with its own department head, a Production and Stock Control Section, and a Costing Section.
(TO BE CONTINUED)
