Against the backdrop of the worsening problem of the illegal copying of published school texts, one of the few established bookstores remaining in Guyana has slashed its imports by around 50 per cent ahead of the start of the new academic year.
Lloyd Austin, proprietor of Austin’s Bookstore told Stabroek Business in a telephone interview earlier this week that the decision to further reduce the importation of original texts had been taken to minimize the risks associated with having unsold stocks on hand. That risk, Austin said had increased steadily over the years on account of the worsening problem of cheaper copied texts being printed in transgression of copyright legislation and openly sold, in some cases by some of the country’s established bookstores.
Explaining the rationale behind the reduced text book imports Austin said that while publishers afford booksellers varying rates of refund on