By Thomas Haribol
The North European BBT has released its annual report for 2022, highlighting the expansion of both distribution and printing, as well as informative features on devotee service, preservation projects, translation efforts, and digital initiatives.
Some highlights from the report include:
– A significant 27% increase in the number of books distributed. 1,395,513 in 2021 to 1,836,891 in 2022. That’s the highest annual number in almost 25 years.
– The top five distributing countries included Russia, Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales), France, the Czech Republic, and Hungary.
– 2,075,852 pieces of literature were printed (that’s a 35% increase over 2021). With over 98 titles, a book was sent to the printer every 3.7 days.
– With the continued growth of ebooks, the BBT team is converting the entire back catalog of over 1,000 titles in 45 languages into this digital format. Currently, they have 224 ebooks in 24 languages in multiple ebook formats. One of the newest ebooks is “Bhagavad-gita As It Is” in Azerbaijani.
– First edition books include the Kyrgyz language “Bhagavad-gita As It Is” and “Perfect Questions, Perfect Answers” in Albanian and Mongolian.
– The BBT art scanning project, based in Detroit, is cleaning and scanning priceless art from the early days of ISKCON, including Bharadraja Dasa’s Krishna book painting of the Yadus bathing at Kurukṣetra during a solar eclipse.
– Interviews with Acyutapriya Dasa, Zonal Supervisor for Ukraine, and Bhakta Andriy Lytvyn on book distribution and translation work that continues in Ukraine despite the challenges of war.
– A feature on the Republic of Tuva (located in south-central Siberia) which now has a translation of “Perfect Questions, Perfect Answers” in Tuvan.
– An interview with Guara Krishna Dasa on how the Russian devotees are meeting the challenges caused by the war.
– The new BBT Audio Library on the iOS and Android platforms is now in the testing phase.
– And much, much more.
Read more: https://iskconnews.org/ne-bbt-releases-2022-stats-showing-growth-in-distribution-printing-ebooks-and-more/
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