I answered to following :
1) what is your opinion on dewan bahasa & pustaka
It is important to have an institution like the DBP. We can't deny it's importance regardless whether they are playing their role to the hilt. DBP's existence since 1956 has done a lot of good things to the nation, especially in supporting the integrity of Bahasa Melayu as promulgated by the Federal Constitution.
2) do you think they are playing an effective role
We have to differentiate between DBP and the DBP's staff. There are times that we have to look at DBP as an institution but there are times that things were being carried out by DBP's staff. DBP has its own stand with regards to language and literature. Lately, DBP as an institution is not as dominant as they used to be.
The reason being :
- circulation of books by DBP is quite limited. you can say that to buy a book published by DBP is like saying you are getting a rare collection. DBP books can only be found in DBP bookstore's and only selected avenues. It is quite difficult to find DBP books in MPH or Kinokuniya. People don't even know what are the latest books by DBP. Not the mention their magazine as well. DBP produces good magazines like Dewan Sastera, Dewan Budaya, Dewan Masyarakat, Tunas Cipta and more which don't have any equivalent in English. But sadly, these magazines are hard to get. People started to forget about the existence of DBP when it comes to publications. These are facts and not merely my humble opinion.no respect for DBP when DBP makes their own statements on a certain issues. For instance, the usage of the word infotainmen by TV2. DBP already stated that such word cannot be used as it can't be found in the dictionary and grammatically incorrect. But even the government refused to respect such opinion.
- accessibility to DBP itself. Besides the fact that it is quite difficult to get to DBP by public transport (the nearest LRT would be Hang Tuah station, quite a distant to walk from there, it's difficult to catch a bus or train from DBP to elsewhere), DBP is shutting limiting itself to its own domain/world. They somehow look like refusing to come down to meet us the mere mortals. There are no open days for the public or projects for recruiting new writers openly, except limited to Minggu Penulis Remaja which is only conducted once a year and subject to 20 participants or some writing competition which takes years to announce their winners. Contrary to other private publishers who encouraging more writers to come it.
- DBP takes a very long time to publish a title. The bureaucracy is such that a certain title will take longer than 3 years to get published. This frustrates a lot of good writers who would rather get their work published elsewhere.
3) what kind changes you would love to see taking place in dewan ?
- Friendliness. DBP is an institution that people would like to look up to. They have to be more "user-friendly".
- speed up the publication of good books.
- circulate their books better. There are readers out there who are looking for good books. No one can deny that DBP produces good books (with no grammatical errors, at least). But the books fail to meet their readers
- more educational and beneficial activities which involves the public and not just limited to a number of members of a certain writers' association.
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