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Originally published as:
McCarthy, Cavan Michael. The impact of Mercosur on publishing in Brazil. In: Societies under constraint: economic and social pressures in Latin America: papers of the Fortieth Annual Meeting of the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials, Athens, Georgia, April 29 - May 5, 1995; Robert A. McNeil, editor. Austin, TX, SALALM Secretariat, 1997. pp. 121-136.

Introduction

Basic Principles

Table 1. Profiles of Mercosur Countries

Table 2. Culture and Communications in Mercosur Countries

Book Publishing

Other Media

Future Developments and Conclusions

Notes

Bibliography
 
 

Introduction

    As the millennium draws to a close, the world is passing through a period of intense technological and organizational change. Computer networks permit us to control and analyze our environment more deeply than ever before, bringing human beings into a dynamic relationship with information flows. Television networks place entertainment. news, and occasionally even culture inside all the homes in the global village. Multinational companies have spun commercial and industrial webs which cover the planet, delivering goods and services to previously isolated regions. Major nations have forged powerful common markets, which permit free passage of goods, services, and people. The European Common Market (now European Union) was such a great success that its example is being followed in the rest of the world, notably in North America with the creation of NAFTA, uniting Canada, the United States, and Mexico (Thorstensen 1992).

    With the participation of countries like France, Britain. and the United States, which have traditionally been careful to maintain their independence, in economic blocs, the historical process has become unstoppable. We are witnessing the birth of a new transnational world order which will profoundly mark the next historical era (Brasil e o plano Bush 1991; Ianni 1992). The trend toward common markets is so strong that there is no sense in maintaining an illusory independence because the countries that remain outside economic unions will be trapped into poverty and underdevelopment. Latin America has been struggling to insert itself into the world context over the last few decades, so it is no surprise to find common market tendencies in this region.

    The major initiative so far has been in the south of the subcontinent, with the creation of Mercosur (Mercado Comun del Sur), a customs union of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, formalized by the Treaty of Asunción in March 1991. At the time the treaty was signed there was little discussion about the possible impacts of the treaty on Brazil, which was still reeling from the effects of the major economic and political changes introduced by the government of Fernando Collor. There has been little 

criticism of such a wide-reaching measure: opinion in Brazil seems to be that common markets are inevitable and that Mercosur is a logical step. Because the partners in the union are either roughly on a level with Brazil, or much smaller, the plan does not arouse any patriotic fears. Even an intellectual with strong links to the Brazilian labor movement, criticizing the new market in a periodical issued by the Workers Party, concluded that "it does not appear to be possible to offer alternatives to the consolidation of Mercosul" (Alimonda 1992).

    Despite these positive attitudes, the implementation of Mercosur must necessarily be a slow process because Brazilian society has, up to now, been relatively closed, with stringent bureaucratic controls. For instance, it seems paradoxical to discuss free international transit of goods, when shipments are currently checked and taxed on state borders within Brazil, or to consider telecommunications within the four countries, when it costs several thousand dollars to purchase a telephone line in Brazil and it is difficult to call between major cities at peak hours.

    At the moment Mercosur is seen basically as a commercial treaty, of interest to businessmen (Barbosa 1991). But the interests and characteristics of the four countries are very similar, and it is inevitable that Mercosur will develop and eventually become a true common market, permitting the free interchange of goods, currencies, people, institutions, and cultures, as in the European Union. This wider process of change must necessarily include the processing and distributing of information, and librarians and information professionals need to examine the effects of Mercosur on their activities. This paper examines some aspects of the impact of Mercosur on publishing. The perspective reflects Brazilian viewpoints, but this is natural for a country emerging from a lengthy historical isolation. Because Mercosur is so new, much of this text discusses what could or should happen. rather than what has happened. The increasing amount of documentation on the subject has been consulted (Alves 1992; Mercosul e a Comunidade 1994; Mercosul: integração na América Latina 1993; Simonsen Associados 1992). Parts of an earlier, wider study by the author (McCarthy 1992) have been incorporated after being updated to account for new data about publishing in Brazil (Diagnóstico do setor editorial brasileira 1993) and Claudio Rama's pioneering text on the economics of book production in the Mercosur (Rama 1994) which I obtained while writing this essay. It has been necessary to examine areas related to publishing, notably censorship, cultural policy, linguistic policy, and intellectual property.
 

Basic Principles

    Historically, there is no precedent in the region for a union like Mercosur. The Southern Cone has been marked by a lengthy rivalry

between Argentina and Brazil; the third power, Uruguay, was created to keep the first two countries apart. A cynic could claim that the period of greatest unity in the Southern Cone so far was during the War of the Triple Alliance, when three of the Mercosur countries joined together to inflict near genocide on the fourth, Paraguay. Argentina-Brazil rivalries in recent years have led to the maintenance of significant standing armies and spilled over into the field of atomic energy, in which joint inspection procedures were agreed to at the same time Mercosur was established. Competition is at its most intense on the soccer field, where Argentina and Brazil are very evenly matched and their games are events of major importance.

    Because of the novelty at the regional level of the concept of a common market, Brazilians will have to change deeply rooted opinions and attitudes in order to accept Mercosur and to benefit from it. Brazil is racially mixed and has considerable economic inequality, but remains culturally relatively homogeneous in comparison with many developing countries. The same language is spoken all over Brazil, with only slight variation in accent in difference regions; television is controlled by a handful of networks. mostly viewed nationally; publications on sale in bookshops are almost all in Portuguese and are, in general, both printed and published in Brazil. Until recently Brazil was also relatively isolated from international commercial relations and almost all consumer goods and foodstuffs for sale to the general public were produced in Brazil; the automobile industry, for example, was totally nationalized and auto imports were prohibited. There was even a lengthy period when all microcomputers were required by law to be made in Brazil; nationalistic practices of this type were considered a source of pride. It is clear that this tradition will not be discarded from one day to another, but Mercosur should eventually lead to a full common market among the four countries involved.

    The cultural homogeneity of Brazil in relation to the Mercosur countries will not continue for long because the member nations are extremely varied in nature. In the words of a major source: "The first factor which attracts our attention when we examine the Mercosur is the lack of symmetry between the various countries involved" (Simonsen Associados 1992). A glance at the basic statistics offers ample proof (Table 1). (Note 1).
 

Table 1. Profiles of Mercosur Countries
 

Sources:Simonsen Associados 1992.

    It is easy to pick examples of unbalance from Table 1. The population of the Mercosur countries ranges from 144 million in Brazil to 4 million in Paraguay. The gross national product of the same countries varies even more widely, from 291 billion US$ down to just 5 billion dollars. Per capita GNP is highest in Argentina, (US52.337), reaching half that level in Paraguay. The population is growing fastest in Paraguay, four times quicker than in Uruguay. Such disparities do not mean that it is impossible to create

    In the Southern Cone the differences extend into the cultural field, where statistics are equally asymmetric, as shown in Table 2. (Note 2).
 

Table 2. Culture and Communications in Mercosur Countries
 
 

Sources:Almanaque Abril 1992; South American Handbook 1991; Statesman's Yearbook 1992; Statistical Abstract of Latin America 1989;Rama 1994.
 

    Apart from the variety of their channels of communication, the Mercosur countries have different visions of their cultures. Argentina has a strong national culture, an important element within an even more significant Hispanic culture. Uruguay shares a strong Hispanic culture, but its national culture is insufficiently known outside its borders. Two distinct cultures live side by side in Paraguay: printed culture is basically Hispanic, with the same center-branch relationship as Uruguay. Parallel to this is Guarani culture, which permeates society but receives less intellectual attention than it deserves. Brazil has a strong national culture in which European, native American, and African elements are now so intermixed that it can no longer be considered an offshoot of Europe. It has become a separate culture while retaining as its basic unifying element a European language, Portuguese, spoken nowhere else in Mercosur or even in the

Americas. The very name of the common market reflects this linguistic diversity: Mercosur in Spanish, Mercosul in Portuguese. So far there is no provision for regional or minority activities within Mercosul (Rama 1994). In Northeast Brazil there is considerable concern that Mercosur will strengthen the economies of the central areas of the four countries, roughly from Belo Horizonte to Bahia Blanca, while leaving the peripheral areas even more depressed. Presumably, local activists, stimulated by precedents within the European Union, will soon begin to demand action in this area. The internationalization of trade should be accompanied by a strengthening of local cultural activities to protect minority interests against possible massification.

    The principle of free cross-frontier movement within a common market implies freedom of cultural transfer; that is, there should be no censorship on the internal borders of Mercosur. Political censorship should be insignificant within a common market because participation in an organization of this level of complexity implies the acceptance of democratic rules for

political activities. Dictatorships close their frontiers against egalitarian influences and do not survive where there is free transmission of ideas. Turkey, for example, was unable to enter the European Union because it was considered insufficiently democratic. At the same time one must remember that the countries of the Southern Cone have only just recently emerged from a period of domination by harsh dictatorships. Until the fall of Stroessner in 1989 tourists were searched for communist literature upon entering Paraguay (South American Handbook 1990). This practice now appears anachronistic, but few other Latin American countries have cause for pride in this area; in Brazil twenty years ago the ruling generals considered it necessary to prohibit the sale of five hundred books, including a text on the War of the Triple Alliance (Silva 1989).

    The principle of freedom of cultural movements also implies the existence of uniform or mutually acceptable rules of copyright and royalties among the member countries. The problems will probably be relatively limited with respect to printed materials, but significant conflicts could occur in reference to newer modes of communication. such as videotapes. musical recordings, and software. Rama (1994) notes significant advances already in this area.
 

Book Publishing

    Book publishing in Brazil has certain specific advantages: it dominates a significant, linguistically integrated market and offers excellent quality, locally printed books (Hallewell 1985). Multinational publishers and books from other countries have little impact on the publishing trade. Not all countries enjoy these advantages; Canada, for example, is bilingual and its publishing industry is overshadowed by that of the United States. Publishing in Spanish America is dominated by Spanish publishers and imported books. Brazil's strong position has developed because Brazilian books are written in Portuguese, a language not spoken elsewhere on the continent. But in the context of Mercosur this linguistic barrier becomes a major disadvantage. The great challenge to Brazilian publishing in Mercosur will be to maintain its local advantages and expand its exports to its Spanish-speaking partners. The difficulty is that the use of Portuguese may well be more effective in reducing exports of Brazilian books, rather than in limiting imports of foreign books.

    At the moment Brazilian books are, almost always, printed in the same state where they are published. Until recently typesetters with a good knowledge of Portuguese were essential to produce texts in that language while printing presses were available in any large city. But technology has changed this situation because modern printing is based on lithographic films or floppy discs which can be produced by specialized typists and
 

transported easily to distant printshops. SGML (Standard General Markup Language) standardizes the appearance of the text and facilitates retrieval of information while files can even be transmitted electronically to their destination. Printing equipment, such as a Cameron press, where a roll of paper enters at one end and complete books come out the other end, is highly specialized and expensive. This is a very sophisticated machine, only available in major cities, whereas finished books can be easily transported to their destination. In the last century it was common to print titles for the Brazilian market in France or England, and this internationalization of printing may well return within Mercosur.

    Until very recently most Brazilian businesses were basically independent Brazilian-run family companies which dominated their markets; the neoliberal tide has already forced modernization upon most areas of activity in Brazil, but the book industry so far has remained within the old, comfortable framework. Brazilian publishing is still normally based on family companies which operate independently within a market reserved for them by the Portuguese language. Decisions are usually made by the head of the publishing house, based on personal knowledge of books and culture and other subjective factors. Foreign interchange is generally limited to the simplest possible contact, the outright sale of publication rights; licensing of subsidiary rights, already common in the music and video industries, is still rare in Latin American publishing (Rama 1994). This pattern should change radically in the next few years because publishers will be forced to cooperate with colleagues from Mercosur neighbors. There are numerous possible alternatives: co-editions with a variety of publishing houses from neighboring countries; ongoing collaboration for a series of books, or within a specific area; establishing subsidiaries in neighboring countries; purchase of part of or entire publishing houses in neighboring countries or joint ventures. It is difficult to forecast which scenario will become reality because Brazilian publishers are starting from scratch; Latin America is not currently a major market for Brazilian books, nor is co-edition a significant option for Brazilian publishers (Diagnóstico do setor editorial brasileiro 1993). Brazilian publishers are also keen to avoid a situation where they are pressured to purchase rights to foreign books, but foreign publishers are not interested in buying rights to Brazilian books. The one certainty is that Brazilian publishers will have to attain significantly higher levels of organization in order to compete in Mercosur, where many major publishers in the Spanish-speaking partner countries are subsidiaries of major Spanish publishers (Rama 1994). They have already spread into Uruguay and Paraguay and will doubtless begin to enter the Brazilian market, via joint venture or by simply purchasing active Brazilian publishers; either option will give them access to the cultural background which is so important in

publishing. This process could totally change the face of Brazilian publishing in a few years, unless Brazilian companies rise to meet the challenge.

    Links in the book production chain which were previously peripheral become important in the context of a common market. Brazil needs to create its own strong group of literary agents; otherwise, Brazilian literature may come to be handled largely by agents with Spanish linguistic and cultural roots. Inherent in that situation is the risk that Brazilian texts that are not well received in Spanish-speaking countries will not be translated into English or other languages. A similar set of circumstances has arisen in Australia, where most publishers are subsidiaries of British publishing houses; texts that they consider inappropriate rarely reach the North American market.

    An experienced and qualified pool of Portuguese-to-Spanish translators will be necessary for international programs. At the moment, translating between Spanish and Portuguese attracts little attention because it seems easy; in fact, it requires very close attention to the subtleties of language. Brazil has relevant experience in this area because it is common to "translate" from European Portuguese to Brazilian Portuguese, a process that requires even more attention to linguistic detail (Diagnóstico do setor editorial brasileiro 1993). Translators need better pay; they often command little more than typists. It will be necessary to expand the number of courses to train qualified translators at the university level, but this will require government support. A translating program to make Brazilian literary classics available in Spanish and to promote their distribution in Mercosur countries would be another valuable government initiative.

    Literary magazines and book review supplements have been experiencing lean times in Brazil; "Leia" disappeared and the literary supplements of the major newspapers were absorbed into general cultural supplements. But literary magazines have a fundamental role to play in publicizing new books, above all for readers outside the major cities or overseas. Brazil's National Library is already issuing a series of publications with annotations in English of Brazilian books for foreign publishers (Social Sciences Catalog 1994). The same data also appear in periodical form in the National Library's Brazilian Book Magazine; in view of the impact of Mercosur, a recent issue contained annotations in Spanish (Brazilian Book Magazine 1994). Brazil's National Book Institute used to distribute selected Brazilian books to Brazilian libraries: a program of this nature at the Mercosur level would be highly relevant. Brazilian publishers will naturally wish to participate in book fairs in Mercosur countries. and events with a Mercosur flavor may soon emerge, notably in Rio Grande do Sul state, which borders Uruguay and Argentina.

    Mercosur should encourage publishing in certain fields. There will be an immediate need for reference books covering the new region. including tourist guides, encyclopedias, and statistical compendia; many of these will come out directly in CD-ROM, a medium in which Brazilian publishers are rapidly gaining confidence. There will be a major demand for Spanish language teaching texts in Brazil, and for Portuguese language texts in the Spanish-speaking countries of the bloc. It is entirely possible that the sister language will replace English as the most commonly taught second language in the Mercosur countries; this will be a major change because until recently the sister language was not taught at all in schools. School textbooks in general will need to be updated to include examples, situations, and characters from neighboring countries. Children's' books would seem to offer the most obvious export opportunities for Brazilian publishers. Illustrated books have high production costs, but Brazilian presses are experienced in producing high-quality texts for children. Such books should reflect Brazilian culture; there is little point in offering Mercosur children colorless texts that could come from any country.

    All books published in Mercosur countries should be clearly identified by the full name and address of the publisher; cities should be given in full, not cited as "RJ;" "SP," or "Distrito Federal," and the country should also be specified. Telephone and fax numbers need to be supplied; e-mail will soon become as common as fax. ISBNs need to be included in all Mercosur books in the form of standardized bar codes; printed on the back cover, these would become the basic element for booksellers' control systems. Cataloging in Publication programs need to become more dynamic so that cataloging information is easily accessible in databases, available to any bookseller or library. Standardization of cataloging poses few difficulties because it will continue to be based on MARC, but bilingual subject heading lists, appropriate to regional needs, would be very useful.

    To make Brazilian books more readily available overseas a catalog of books in print would be extremely valuable. Only an online system, available in all four countries, would be able to offer up-to-date information. including prices and distributors. Brazilians urgently need better information on the books published in Mercosur countries. Establishing a joint database of books available in Mercosur is not a simple task, however, because many of the items offered for sale in the Spanish-speaking countries come from Spain or other Latin American countries. It would not be viable to try to cover all books from Brazil, Spanish-speaking Latin America, Spain, and also Portugal. Such a system might even be perceived in Brazil as a Trojan horse, opening the Brazilian market to foreign books more than it would publicize Brazilian books overseas. It is to the Brazil's advantage to participate in these kinds of joint activities when the Brazilian contribution 

will be significant. But there is less relevance on the wider level of Iberian culture, where the Brazilian contribution would be overshadowed by Spanish production.

    SALALM members are deeply involved in university Latin American studies programs, but other parts of the world do not necessarily think along the same lines; within the subcontinent it is not always common to consider the culture of Latin America as a whole. Mercosur libraries will need to set up specific programs to collect and promote the literature of their neighbors. The major initiative of this type in Brazil is the "Memorial da América Latina" in São Paulo; the formation of relevant collections in strategic locations could well attract official support and business sponsorship. Brazil already has more dynamic programs of cultural dissemination than other members of Mercosur (Rama 1994); these cultural centers and their libraries will play a major role in bringing Brazilian culture to other countries. Care must be taken to maintain a balanced view. It would be incorrect to present Brazil solely in terms of Jorge Amado and Afro-Brazilian religion, and equally false to show Brazilians as just another set of middle-class citizens. similar to those who live in suburbs elsewhere in the world.
 

Other Media

    Other media are beyond the narrow scope of this paper, but some of the more interesting possibilities, can be briefly cited here. Special sections in existing newspapers for Mercosur news will perhaps become common. but a daily newspaper in the two major languages of Mercosur would probably not be viable, owing to the difficulty of translating within restrictive time constraints. A news agency at the Mercosur level would be a more interesting possibility and would be able to play a major role in regional integration. All Mercosur countries need better access to the newspapers of their neighbors; here the Internet could make a major contribution, offering the text of newspapers in electronic form. Presumably most major newspapers of the bloc will be soon be archived on CD-ROM; the Folha de São Paulo is already available in this form. If CD-ROMs were to offer indexing terms in three languages, Spanish, Portuguese and English. rapid information retrieval would be guaranteed not only in Mercosur countries, but also worldwide. Weekly magazines produced in the style of Time, Newsweek, or Veja offer the best opportunities for simultaneous publication. Their publication frequency allows sufficient time for quality translation and a centrally based printing plant could produce both editions. The Brazilian market for weekly magazines seems saturated; perhaps the most viable procedure would be to launch a Spanish language edition of a Brazilian weekly. Downmarket illustrated magazines covering television, 

gossip, photonovelas, and comics would also have good prospects in the four countries.

    Researchers should be encouraged to publish in the scientific periodicals of neighboring countries: texts should be accessible in Spanish, Portuguese, and English; that is, if the main text is in Spanish, it should be accompanied by abstracts in English and Portuguese. Presentation of texts should be standardized, so that it is possible to send the same text to any scientific periodical in the region; the standards for bibliographic citations should be written in order to facilitate computerized processing of citations.

    Cooperative indexing systems and databases will be needed to facilitate access to regional literature; systems should operate equally well in Spanish, Portuguese, and English. Again, it would be advantageous to Brazil to enter systems on a Mercosur or Latin American level in which its contributions will be significant; there would be less interest in adding Brazilian documents to a Hispanic American database, where the former will be lost among a mass of Spanish language contributions. Librarians have already begun to discuss the implications of the new commercial bloc (Cunha 1993; Silva 1993). Systems, such as the Brazilian COMUT, which permit researchers to obtain photocopies of articles from periodicals need to be expanded to permit interchange among the Mercosur countries. This would involve online access to a computerized union catalog of periodical holdings, such as the Brazilian catalog in the Antares system which recently went onto Internet in Brazil. Mercosur libraries need to set up programs that give priority to subscribing to serials from their neighbors in the bloc.

    One of the basic principles of the union is that newspapers and magazines should be freely transportable from one Mercosur country to another. It follows naturally that the individual needs to have legal right of redress in case of libel or misinformation. Censorship on sexual grounds is now low profile in the press, but problems arise in other areas in Europe: advertising of cigarettes or "counseling services for pregnant women" (abortion clinics). As a general rule, what is censored overseas is soon censored in Brazil. Shortly after rap musicians in the United States got into trouble with the authorities, they began to be targeted by police in Brazil.

    Linguistic problems are minimized in the area of audio-visual media, where the major objective will be to encourage regionalization. thus strengthening the penetration of television, cinema, and music from member countries within Mercosur. Film festivals, video distribution, and satellite television transmissions will be significant elements in this process. There is some concern about the impact of the importation of Spanish language books on the Portuguese language; books are insignificant, however, when compared with the impact on Brazil of Spanish language satellite television, beaming twenty-four hours of novelas, game shows, and lottery drawings in

Spanish into all Brazilian communities. It is quite probable that this will be happening within a decade.

    At the present time there is a serious shortage of information and comparable statistics about Mercosur. The bloc needs a network of information and documentation offices, along the lines of those in the European Union (Coyne 1992). Apart from traditional library materials, databases will need to cover legislation, regulations, standards, statistics, and "gray" literature; all documents and systems need to be in both Spanish and Portuguese. Computerized networks and CD-ROMs will be able to play a major role in making this documentation available to potential users. To maximize interchange of experience, the staff of these offices should be contracted to work not in their countries of origin, but in neighboring countries, and must be fluent in the two major languages of the bloc.

    The Internet is rapidly becoming established in the Southern Cone. It is common in universities and Brazil is opening for commercial access at the present moment. The network needs to become more active from a regional viewpoint; presently, it is used mainly for communication within or with countries that have already achieved a high degree of automation, e.g., communication within North America or from the North to the South. Traffic between emerging powers is still light, but interchange between Mercosur countries needs to be increased, which involves making more relevant information available via the Internet within the region.

    Mercosur cultural policy is being now being developed. Preliminary indications are that priority will be given to interlinking museums, libraries, and historical archives via the Internet ("Mercosul da cultura" 1995). It will be very important to keep the network operating free or for a nominal charge and to maintain the principle that messages should not be taxed or subject to censorship or scrutiny for control of content. Commercial networks operating in the region should charge a single tariff for all messages originating within the four member countries. One interesting factor in the context of computerized text transmission is that written Spanish places less emphasis upon the need for diacritics than Portuguese. A Spanish text without diacritical marks can be readily understood, whereas Brazilians consider Portuguese texts without diacritics awkward to read.
 

Future Developments and Conclusions

    This paper discusses Mercosur in terms of its four current partners, but history shows that economic blocs expand and change. A similar process will probably occur in Mercosur. The most frequently discussed possibility is the entry of Chile. This development would not radically change the basic composition of the group but would open the Brazilian book industry to intensive competition from modernized and highly organized Chilean 

printers, who already print for Argentine publishers (Rama 1994). Bolivia might well follow Chile to Mercosur; the addition of an Andean state would add considerably to the cultural diversity of the bloc.

    A different direction is indicated by the possibility of enlarging NAFTA to include other major Latin American powers, an idea promoted by President Clinton in recent months. In this case, the objections from the Brazilian and Argentine point of view would be largely political: these countries are dominant players in Mercosur but would have to accept the role of junior partners in NAFTA. The advantages of an all-America bloc would have to be very clearly stated in order to attract Brazilian and Argentine applications. The cultural impact of NAFTA entry on Brazilian and Latin America is difficult to predict. Brazilian publishers will note that NAFTA includes protection for Canadian cultural industries and would probably request similar treatment. A different direction could be a link between Mercosur and the European Union, an option attractive to the Southern Cone because it would guarantee wider market access and would counterbalance U.S. influence in the area with no threat to sovereignty. From the cultural point of view a common market link would expand cultural choices and diminish dependency on Spain or the United States.

    Mercosur offers a historic opportunity for Brazilian publishing, which has the chance to abandon its traditional isolation and open new horizons in neighboring countries. Few other prospects for external expansion are visible at the moment, but Brazilian publishers will have to organize and modernize to withstand competition from Spanish-based publishing conglomerates operating in Argentina. The information industry in Mercosur should operate within the principles of legality, fair competition, and free transmission of goods and services between countries which characterizes common markets.

    Ideas and cultural manifestations should transit freely between member countries, independent of whether they are registered on a physical support or exist in electronic form only. Books, periodicals, newspapers, television transmissions, software, data files, and so on should circulate freely within member countries free of censorship, taxation, or bureaucratic control. At the same time member countries must respect copyrights and other intellectual property rights.

    Brazilians need to promote Latin American culture within Brazil and also take their culture and language to the other members of the bloc. Brazil will be interested in participating in joint activities in the information area, such as creating databases, when Brazil can make a significant contribution to the information held. Mercosur should continue to give equal weight to the Spanish and Portuguese languages; Brazil will be interested only in a situation of linguistic parity. Mass media will play an important role in 

these interrelated processes, while librarians will be responsible for organizing and promoting print-based cultural activities.

    With respect to linguistic considerations, the most significant difference between Brazil and the other members of Mercosur, on a cultural basis, is that they speak two similar, but distinct, languages. Portuguese has survived as a separate language because it is the chief instrument whereby Portugal and Brazil have distinguished themselves from Spain and its colonies. The Portuguese and Spanish are ethnically and religiously similar, and their history has shared some commonalities. These parallels, however, are disappearing. Portugal and Spain are now members of the European Union, while Brazil is joining Spanish-speaking South American countries in Mercosur. In this context there must be a concern for the survival of the Portuguese language. The simplicity of Spanish has enabled it to overshadow the other languages of the Iberian Peninsula, such as Catalan, Galego, and Basque. If Portuguese had been absorbed by Spanish in this way, Spanish would be the second language of the planet. Is there a risk that Portuguese will not survive the competition from Spanish in a world without frontiers? If so, it is a remote one; the Portuguese language, still numerically very important, is spoken by more people than either French. Japanese, or German. In the end, the question will be settled on the cultural front- As long as Brazilian culture remains vibrant and distinct from that of the rest of Latin America, it will need to be transmitted by a distinctive language, and Portuguese will continue to be strong.
 

Notes

Note 1. It is common to find that statistics on developing countries vary widely. For example, other sources show different data for the categories in table 1. "Mercosul: saiba o que muda na América do Sul" (1994) gives the following data for 1994 GNP (in $US billions): Argentina 200.2; Brazil 426.3; Paraguay 0.9; Uruguay 1.3. These figures would show an even wider range of GNP per country than that cited here. Inflation rates also vary considerably from year to year, Argentine inflation fell sharply from 1993 while at the time of this writing (early 1995) Brazilian inflation was also low.
 

Note 2. Data on number of titles in Table 2 are from Rama (1994). The general problems of variation among sources and lack of reliability of Latin American statistics also affect book industry data. This essay is not the place for a detailed examination of such statistics, but it should be noted that Rama gives a total for the four countries of 21,128 titles. The Library of Congress, Rio de Janeiro Office, maintains extensive internal documentation on its regional acquisitions; average figures for monographs acquired over recent years are as follows: Argentina 1,832; Brazil 4,637; Paraguay 200; Uruguay 440. Library of Congress acquisitions total 7,109 titles. 33.65 percent of the 21,128 books which Rama considers total book production for the region. Starting from Library of Congress acquisitions per country and using the figure of 33.65 percent as a basis to calculate the production of each country, results are as follows: Argentina 5.444; Brazil 13,780; Paraguay 594; Uruguay 1,308. The calculations for Argentina and Brazil are very close to Rama's figures, indicating that they are reliable. 

Accurate statistics on Paraguay are difficult to obtain: Rama's relatively high figure for Uruguayan production is probably based on his direct access to local information sources. The UNESCO Statistical Yearbook (1991) cites 4,836 titles for Argentina, which correlates well with other sources, but only 805 titles from Uruguay. The Statistical Abstract of Latin America (1986) also cites a figure of approximately 800 for Uruguayan books.
 

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"Revista do Mercosul = Revista del Mercosur." Rio de Janeiro: Editora Terceiro Mundo, 1992-. Text in Portuguese and Spanish.

Silva, Deonísio da. Nos bastidores da censura: sexualidade, literatura e repressão pos-64. São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, 1989.

Silva, Luis Antonio Gonçalves da. "Políticas e sistemas nacionais de informação no Mercosul: uma abordagem preliminar." Ciência da Informação 22:1 (January-April 1993), 71-76.

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