In anticipation of Hebrew Book Week, which will be from June 15-25 this year, the Jewish National and University Library (JNUL) of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem published data about books published in Israel during 2004.
The JNUL is the legal deposit library of Israel, and receives, according to the Israel “Book Act,” two copies of each book, journal, cassette or disk published in Israel. The publications are catalogued in the JNUL catalogue, in the Israel national bibliography and in the Israel Union List. The JNUL catalogue is the most comprehensive in Israel.
During 2004, 8,201 new Israeli titles were registered by the Legal Deposit Department of the JNUL: 6,436 books, 884 new periodicals, and 881 non-print titles, such as CDs and cassettes. In additions, 11,959 issues of current periodicals were received at the JNUL.
Most of the titles were in Hebrew: 5,183. Of these, about 89% were originally written in Hebrew, and about 11% were translated into Hebrew.
The next common languages are English, 616 titles; Russian, 114 titles; and Arabic, 62 titles. In addition, 26 Romanian titles were published in Israel last year, 21 in Spanish and 13 in French. Only five titles in Amharic were registered, four in Yiddish and one in Ladino. A few books were published in other languages, such as German, Hungarian, Italian and Chinese.
About 480 books for children and youth were deposited in the library about 7.5% of the total number of books received. In addition, 262 textbooks were deposited about 4% of the total number of books received.
55% of the books were published by commercial publishing houses,
10% by the government and governmental institutions, and 7% by educational institutions universities, colleges and schools. Fourteen percent of the books were published by associations, foundations, museums, community centers and other organizations, and another 14% were self-published by authors.
The orthodox and ultra-orthodox sector was responsible for 21% of the total titles that were published in Israel in 2004.
According to Business Data Israel, 35 million books are sold in Israel annually. 80% of these sales are through bookstore chains, of which the Steimatzky chain is the largest with some 150 branches.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on Thursday, June 09, 2005