searching for info on book sales in Hungary

[Timothy W Waters]

>>From tww5 at columbia.eduMon Jan 30 21:59:23 1995
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 21:43:08 -0500 (EST)
From: Timothy W Waters <tww5 at columbia.edu>
To: seelangs
Subject: request for info on book sales in H.


Hello, I am a graduate student at SIPA/Columbia University in New York,
specializing in East/Central Europe; my personal interest is Hungary.  I
am presently working on a paper for a course dealing with the economic
restructuring in the region, and would like to ask for assistance in
finding information and data.

The paper will deal with the effects of changing government subsidy
policy on the retail market; my specific example, if I can find enough
information, will be BOOK PUBLISHING AND RETAILING.  I am looking for
data on:

                :the subsidization of book publishing under the former
                regime (which books were subsidized?  how much?);
                :sales figures for the pre- and post-subsidization periods;
                :data on consumer prices;
                :data on the number of bookstores (openings, closings,
                reopenings under private management, etc.), as well as
                figures or anecdotal information on the street sales of books;
                :narrative and anecdotal information on the amount,
                quality, kind of books sold, and the conditions under which
                books were/are sold
                :information or speculation (preferably published in
                journals, newspapers, or scholarly reports) on the effect the
                loss of subsidies and opening up of the market has had on
                the literary scene.

I need to have hard data to make my case, but I am really most interested
in the less quantifiable questions of the overall effects of the valtozas
on the literary scene and on public feeling about books -- economic
transition as it affects the perceived experience of people, so to
speak.  Beszelek magyarul, tehat magyar nyelvu informaciot, cikkeket is
kuldhetsz.  Koszonom szepen.

Tim Waters