“For those who are worried about the future of print books, I encourage you to go to the Guadalajara Book Fair!” recommends ALA President Molly Raphael, who attended FIL (La Feria Internacional del Libro) for the first time this year. “The print book was so dominant that it was hard to find exhibitors who were even featuring ebooks as an option.”
More than 100 ALA members from such diverse institutions as Stanford University and the Passages Academy in New York City, which serves incarcerated youth, found new Spanish-language books and other resources for their collections at the 25th annual fair, held November 24–December 3. The librarians participated thanks to the collaborative ALA-FIL Free Pass Program, now in its 15th year of providing a $100 stipend from ALA as well as free hotel nights through fair organizers.
The fair provides librarians access to more than 250,000 titles in Spanish, put on display by what Raphael described as a “huge number of publishers, NGOs, book jobbers, etc., who were there with large exhibits.” She went on to explain, “You can find books published in so many different countries. For example, if your library serves a Latino population that comes largely from El Salvador, you can actually purchase books published there.”
The sheer scale of the event is evident in other ways as well. “Television and radio stations set up areas right on the exhibition floor for interviewing award-winning authors and others,” Raphael recounted, adding, “More than 85,000 children were scheduled to visit for programs and activities, and the energy in the Guadalajara Expo Center was everywhere.”
This year librarian attendees were also able to participate in the first-ever pre-fair orientation, which was conducted by Adan Griego of Stanford University. At the onsite orientation, Raphael welcomed the diverse group of school, public, and academic librarians, and breakout sessions provided tips on where to find materials such as good automotive repair books, graphic novels, and statistical resources. Raphael recounted, “With ALA Councilor Roberto Delgadillo as our personal guide (he’s been to 13), I and several other ALA members were treated to a tour through all the different parts of the exhibition. Roberto knew the ropes and pointed out the high quality publishers of children’s books from many different countries, as well as young adult and adult titles for academic and public libraries. His orientation made the book fair so much more manageable for first-timers like myself.”
In addition to all the other activities at FIL, the University of Guadalajara presented a two-day international librarian seminar, known as a “Coloquio,” at which Barbara Jones, director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, presented “Intellectual Freedom: It’s Global; It’s Local.” Another highlight for librarian attendees was witnessing long-time ALA member Jesus Laú being honored as “Librarian of the Year.”
The ALA–FIL Free Pass Program will be offered again next year for interested librarians, and will make applications available as FIL 2012 nears.
MICHAEL DOWLING is director of ALA’s International Relations Office.
