Over 8,000 new Israeli book titles were published in 2004,
according to the Jewish National and University Library
(JNUL) of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem which is
supposed to be sent copies of every new book published. More
than 1,600 of these were religious titles. According to
Business Data Israel, 35 million books are sold in Israel
annually. Hebrew Book Week is June 15-25.
The JNUL is entitled, according to the Israel Book Act, to
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 thus the most
comprehensive in Israel.
In the course of the calendar year 2004, 8,201 new Israeli
titles were sent to the JNUL, including 6,436 books, 884 new
periodicals, and 881 non-print titles, such as CDs and
cassettes. A total of 11,959 issues of current periodicals
were received at the JNUL.
Most of the titles were in Hebrew: 5,183 (86 percent). Of
these, 89 percent were originally written in Hebrew, and 11
percent were translated into Hebrew from other languages.
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. 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 making up about 7.5 percent of the total number of
books received. In addition, 262 textbooks were deposited
— about 4 percent of the books received.
55 percent of the books were published by commercial
publishing houses, 10 percent by the government and
governmental institutions, and 7 percent 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 percent were self-published by
authors.
According to Business Data Israel, 35 million books are sold
in Israel annually. 80 percent of these sales are through
bookstore chains, of which the Steimatzky chain is the
largest with some 150 branches.
In the previous year, 2003, a total of 7,128 titles were
published, but the religious sector published 25 percent of
that amount. This means that the number of religious titles
was about the same in both years, but the number of other
titles rose.
