Book Fair Research Articles (Page 1)

This research article presents a case study exploring the motivational impact of a community-driven book fair held in a Romanian public middle school. The initiative, organized at Scoala Gimnaziala “Mihai Viteazul” in Târgoviște, aimed to foster reading engagement by promoting voluntary book donations, student-led organizing teams, and increased literary access. The event spanned three weeks and involved over 1000 students at various levels of participation. A pre- and post-intervention five-item questionnaire was administered to a selected group of 78 students aged 11–14, complemented by systematic classroom observations conducted by educators. Findings indicate significant improvements in students’ intrinsic motivation to read, perceived access to books, and peer-based reading dialogue. These results highlight the potential of school libraries to act as dynamic agents of literacy development through informal and community-based approaches. The study also outlines challenges related to sample size, generalizability, and the reliance on self-reported data, offering suggestions for future longitudinal research. Ultimately, this article contributes to the growing body of literature on school-based reading interventions and supports the evolving role of librarians as facilitators of student agency and participatory literacy culture..

This study examines Hind al-Mutairi’s 2015 poem, “The Romantic Spring Protest”, as a feminist act of resistance against Saudi Arabia’s tribal patriarchy. The poem critiques gender inequalities and restrictive tribal customs, highlighting the challenges women face. By analysing linguistic and performative elements, this study explores how Saudi women poets challenge patriarchal norms. Despite growing interest in Arab feminist literature, Saudi women’s poetic resistance remains inadequately studied, particularly in performative contexts. This study employs textual, performance, and reception analysis. A close reading reveals al-Mutairi’s use of repetition, metaphor, and verb tense shifts as defiant strategies. Performance analysis examines her Jeddah International Book Fair recitation, where vocal delivery amplified the poem’s impact. Reception analysis assesses media reactions and institutional backlash, showing how poetry provokes discourse. The poem’s transition from submission to rebellion exposes patriarchal contradictions. Using Butler’s performativity and Foucault’s power-knowledge, this study argues poetry is both literary and performative resistance, reshaping Saudi gender discourse.

On the road of development in the New Era, the Communist Party of China (CPC) continues to promote and enrich the theoretical system of socialism with Chinese characteristics. As an important document of China’s political discourse, XI JINPING: The Governance of China IV occupies an authoritative position under the framework of the ‘Great External Promotion’ strategy. The English version of the book is an important milestone in the construction of China’s international discourse system, highlighting China’s wisdom and power in global governance. In the international publicity of the book, China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration and other institutions have played an important role as the main translators of the book, applying a variety of translation strategies to improve the international acceptance of the translated text; international book fairs, literary festivals and other diversified channels have effectively expanded the scope of the book’s communication; and readers’ reviews of the book on websites and other contents reflect that the English version of XI JINPING: The Governance of China IV has achieved a certain degree of effectiveness in communication. In order to further improve the quality of translation of Chinese political literature and the effect of international communication, emphasis should be placed on strengthening the construction of a team of high-end translators for external promotion and combining diversified channels of communication, so as to further promote equal exchanges and mutual understanding between China and civilizations of other countries in the world.

This essay replies to contributions by Douglas Husak, Katrina Sifferd, and Stephen Morse on my recent book Fair Opportunity & Responsibility. After providing a summary of the main elements of that book’s fair opportunity conception of responsibility, I explain how their concerns about ignorance, injustice, and control can be accommodated by fair opportunity.

Abstract This article explores an intergenerational publishing initiative based in New York City that supports children in creating artist books. The pedagogical frameworks, tools, and community-centered practices of the project, Citation Needed, were developed to re-imagine literacy as a set of relational and social experiences. The project culminates in public engagement through book fairs, amplifying children's voices and perspectives.

Abstract This article examines the cultural policy of the Bonn Foreign Office that determined the functions of Frankfurt Book Fair and other international book fairs from the mid-1960s to the end of the 1980 s. Firstly, it focusses on the role of the Frankfurt Book Fair in the New Ostpolitik, particularly with regard to the participation of Eastern European writers and publishers. Secondly, the cultural policy dimension of the ‘guest of honour’ of the Frankfurt Book Fair, a special literary programme initiated in 1976 is put under scrutiny. Thirdly, the participation of German publishers in the Warsaw Book Fair, which was supported by the Federal Foreign Office, is analysed. Finally, international book fairs in Jerusalem, Cairo and Moscow are studied in the perspective of cultural policy.

The Huji Book Fair, as a typical representative of the combination of rural markets and folk art performances in North China, originated in the Ming Dynasty, flourished during the Qing Dynasty, and was included in the national intangible cultural heritage list in 2006. Based on local chronicles, interviews with artists, and field studies, this paper delves into the creation environment and organizational structure of the Huji Book Fair, exploring its cultural implications in terms of folk beliefs, moral education, and community cohesion. The study finds that, in the process of contemporary social development, the Huji Book Fair faces challenges such as generational discontinuity and the disappearance of rituals, with a sharp decline in full-time storytellers and fundamental changes in traditional forms and content. To address these issues, local efforts have included initiatives like "Book Fair into Schools" for cultural reproduction and the integration of culture and tourism to promote industrial exploration. The study suggests that the inheritance of the Huji Book Fair needs to seek a dynamic balance between tradition and innovation, government and grassroots, and tradition and technology, fully leveraging its cultural empowerment role in rural revitalization, achieving its living heritage and the reconstruction of rural cultural ecology in contemporary society.

ABSTRACT This article explores the making of Kurdish book publishing in Turkey under conditions that are inimical to using the Kurdish language. Following the 1991 partial lifting of a longstanding ban on Kurdish, several politico-cultural entrepreneurs established the Kurdish publishing field. Despite being officially free to publish after 1991, they faced significant obstacles concerning their work’s legal status, economic viability, and public reception. In response, they adopted resistance tactics such as redefining publishing, relying on tight-knit social bonds, leveraging politico-cultural networks, and cross-subsidizing publications in Kurdish with the ones in Turkish. While these shared experiences place publishers within a common framework of cultural resistance, cooperation and solidarity remain out of reach. Instead, their interactions are often marked by competition and contention. Drawing from in-depth interviews conducted in 2014 and 2022 and on-site observations from bookstores and book fairs, this study offers a threefold analysis of domination, resistance, and the politics of Kurdish book publishing in Turkey.

The Book Siberia International Festival is held in Siberia since 2014. Since 2017, it coincides with the scientific forum “Region of readers: The books in the life of the contemporaries” which comprises the business and professional program. At the forum plenary meetings, the professionals interested in reading promotion spoke and made their presentations. The reviews and information materials on book fairs and festivals make the tradition of academic periodicals promoting best practices among the professionals. Reading is an important social practice supported and promoted by the library community, public figures in culture and education, as well as by the state agencies. To analyze the projects implemented in Novosibirsk region, Republic of Kazakhstan and People’s Republic of China, the sociocultural approach is applied: it enables to reflect the joint efforts of the governments, professional communities, art and public organizations, ITcompanies, book publishers, and bookselling organizations. The authors focus in particular on Kazakhstan’s national project “The nation of readers”. The PISA method is used to assess the project effectiveness. The PISA study results evidence on the importance of family reading in educating readers in cooperation with the libraries and educational institutions.

Введение. В статье предпринята попытка научно-методической рефлексии проблемы адаптации учебных программ по современному филологическому образованию к условиям обучения иностранных студентов. Актуальность исследования определяется потребностью внедрения в современные методики обучения русской литературе иностранных студентов новых приемов, позволяющих организовать учебный процесс на основе межкультурного взаимодействия, преодолеть шаблоны восприятия русской литературы, проявить творческий потенциал студентов. Материалы и методы. Исследование опирается на актуальные методы в области филологии и методики обучения литературе: культурологический; историко-культурный; целостный анализ поэтического текста; метод творческого чтения, художественной интерпретации. В области преподавания литературы — это опора на современные стратегии медленного чтения, визуализации, игровые и проектные технологии. Результаты. Апробированы и описаны наиболее эффективные приемы работы с иностранными студентами при изучении таких литературоведческих дисциплин, как: лекции с презентациями; комментированное чтение; сочинения-рассуждения; выразительное чтение; инсценировки, а также работа с подкастами, литературными интернет-ресурсами; экскурсии в научные библиотеки; на выставки, в музеи; участие в книжной ярмарке и т. п. Обсуждение. Избранные нами методические приемы направленына органическое восприятие русской литературы, межкультурное взаимодействие и развитие навыков устной и письменной речи. Сложности работы связаны с различием в уровнях языковой подготовки иностранных студентов, оказывающих влияние на результативность обучения. Трудности заложены и в специфике процесса преподавания в Китае, где преобладают письменные виды работ, отсутствует наглядность, анализ интерпретаций. Инициативу иностранных студентов мы стремились активизировать посредством инсценировок, выразительного чтения, конкурсов. Мы стремились внедрять методы преподавания, расширяющие развитие мыслительных навыков и познавательных умений: эвристический, проблемный, визуальный, драматургический и др. Заключение. В процессе работы с иностранными студентами апробировались различные методические приемы, получена и подвергнута рефлексии обратная связь, а именно: письменные работы магистрантов; опрос о результативности обучения, анализ выпускных квалификационных работ по литературоведению. Ключевые слова: иностранные студенты; методика обучения литературе; образовательные технологии; межкультурное взаимодействие; комментированное чтение; проектная работа; педвуз; педагогика высшей школы. Основные положения: – разработать систему обучения иностранных студентов русскому языку на материале русской художественной литературы; – описать содержание и специфику работы с известными методическими приемами в новых условиях; – испытать возможности различных образовательных технологий с учетом различия в уровнях языковой подготовки студентов, их влияния на результативность обучения. Introduction. The article attempts to scientifically and methodologically reflect on the problem of adapting curricula for modern philological education to the conditions of teaching foreign students. The relevance of the study is determined by the need to introduce new techniques into modern methods of teaching Russian literature to foreign students, allowing them to organize the educational process on the basis of intercultural interaction, overcome the patterns of perception of Russian literature, and demonstrate the creative potential of students. Materials and methods. The research is based on current methods in the field of philology and literature teaching methods: cultural, historical and cultural, holistic analysis of poetic text, creative reading method, artistic interpretation. In the field of literature teaching, this is based on modern strategies of slow reading, visualization, game and project technologies. Results. The most effective methods of working with foreign students in the study of such literary disciplines as lectures with presentations; commented reading; essays-reasoning; expressive reading; dramatizations, as well as work with podcasts, literary Internet resources; excursions to scientific libraries; to exhibitions, to museums; participation in a book fair, etc. Discussion. The methodological techniques we have chosen are aimed at organic perception of Russian literature, intercultural interaction and development of oral and written skills. The difficulties of the work are connected with the difference in the levels of language training of foreign students, which influence the effectiveness of training. Difficulties are also inherent in the specifics of the teaching process in China, where written types of work predominate, there is no visual aids, analysis of interpretations. We sought to activate the initiative of foreign students through dramatizations, expressive reading, competitions. We sought to implement teaching methods that expand the development of thinking skills and cognitive abilities: heuristic, problematic, visual, dramatic, etc. Conclusion. In the process of working with foreign students, various methodological techniques were tested, feedback was received and subjected to reflection, namely: written work of master's students; a survey on the effectiveness of training, an analysis of final qualifying works on literary criticism. Keywords: Foreign students; Methods of teaching literature; Educational technologies; Intercultural interaction; Commented reading; Project work; Pedagogical higher education institution; Higher education pedagogy. Highlights: Develop a system for teaching foreign students the Russian language using Russian fiction; Describe the content and specifics of working with known methodological techniques in new conditions; Test the capabilities of various educational technologies, taking into account the differences in the levels of students’ language proficiency and their impact on learning outcomes.

Adela Turin’s publishing house Dalla parte delle bambine (literally: On the side of little girls) was a landmark in Italian children’s literature. Its revolutionary feminist picturebooks met many mothers’ demand to present their daughters (and sons) with new books, free from the common and worn-out sexist stereotypes. Investigating the reception of these innovative books is of particular interest. In fact, although several titles enjoyed substantial sales and critical success, as evidenced by the awards they received at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, the publishing house had a relatively brief life: its years of production occurred between 1975 and 1982. Moreover, as noted by Salviati, Dalla parte delle bambine generally received a better response abroad than at home (2002, p. 41). With the aim of exploring the international reception of the publishing house, this article proposes a study of the press reviews in Italy, France, and the United Kingdom of Turin’s first four picturebooks: Rosaconfetto, Una fortunata catastrofe, Arturo e Clementina, and La vera storia dei bonobo con gli occhiali. The argument highlights that some reviewers appreciated the novel elements of Dalla parte delle bambine’s books and, conversely, that others noted critical issues and sometimes rejected their militant content.

The transition from printed books to digital formats marks a significant transformation in the landscape of Algerian literature. A growing number of writers are using blogs, social media, and digital platforms to share their creations, providing greater freedom of expression to new and often marginalized voices. The digital age is also fostering increased linguistic diversity, with writings in Tamazight, colloquial Arabic, and French. Book fairs continue to exist, but now coexist with online events. This progression facilitates the dissemination of works, circumventing the limitations of conventional publishing. However, it also highlights issues such as the digital divide, the lack of adequate regulation, and insufficient copyright protection. The article under review sheds light on these transformations, examines Sarah Rivens's novel Captive from the perspective of digital technology and the psychological genre, and raises questions regarding the recognition of digital technology in the Algerian literary field.

The article examines the factors that affect the image of Spain on the world stage, which allows the state to develop economically, conduct a powerful foreign policy and influence international processes. As the main directions of this research, attention is focused on the export of book products of the Kingdom of Spain to the countries of the world, numerous international book fairs and events to popularize the Spanish language and culture in the world. The article presents how a planned policy for learning the Spanish language is implemented in Spain, defines the role of various organizations in the preparation and implementation of events aimed at popularizing Spanish culture in the world. It is concluded that the Spanish model of spreading the national language and culture on the world stage is quite successful. The experience of Spain's active participation in the work of international organizations can be useful for imitation in Ukraine, since our country lacks consistent and convincing steps to assert its own role and weight in modern world politics.

ABSTRACT This paper outlines the conceptual foundations of scientific communication (SciComm) and bibliographic communication (BibComm) to offer an overview of the opportunities and challenges presented by communicating to different audiences about the Poison Book Project, bibliotoxicology, and hazardous materials in bibliographic collections. It draws on a case study of New York City-based Honey & Wax Booksellers, a rare book dealer who made the novel decision to market arsenical books primarily as such at the 2024 New York International Antiquarian Book Fair. Observations on the result of that decision, which generated a great deal of buzz in bookish circles, are then compared to lessons taken from SciComm and BibComm to illuminate paths forward for communication and collaboration.

Text Construction in Arabic News About Cairo International Book Fair Based on the Perspective Language Functions of Halliday

The focus of this article is the experience of Polish literature in today's Brussels. The research aims to illustrate the presence of this literature through three main aspects. Firstly, the act of reading. Polish literature will be examined to identify its readership in Brussels. Secondly, the aspect of living literature in Brussels will be explored, discussing events such as meetings with authors, literature festivals, awards, book fairs, etc. as a promotional tool. The discussion will also include an author living in Brussels, Grażyna Plebanek, and her perspective on the city. Lastly, the role of translation in promoting Polish literature in Belgium will be briefly highlighted through the introduction of three key figures in the field.

This contribution explores the hypothesis that 18th-century Bohemia, which was effectively a political and informational periphery directed from Vienna, also functioned – thanks to its geographical position and other factors and despite unfavourable circumstances – as a kind of “information membrane”. In particular, this study explores the forms of cultural transfer between Bohemia (Prague) and its neighbouring Protestant regions in Germany, especially Saxony. In the late 18th18th century, religiously tolerant Saxony, with its educated court in Dresden, book fair, and university in Leipzig, functioned as a sui generis centre of Enlightenment in Central Europe. Moreover, it was where the canon of new literary and scientific German was taking shape. Saxony also mediated the transfer of new cultural models (and printed materials) from Great Britain and France to the German-speaking environment of Central Europe. Its peripheral position close to the border enabled a lively cultural transfer with neighbouring Bohemia, and active exchange of information. I believe this was one of the key factors that drove an accelerated “dynamics of Enlightenment” in the Czech environment during the last third of the 18th18th century. Contacts with the originally Lutheran Saxony were facilitated also by the Catholic conversion of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony, in 1697, which reinforced a symbiosis between the now Catholic court in Dresden and Lutheran university in Leipzig. I chose the historical region of Bohemia to illustrate the relationship between centre and periphery, and as a basis for discussing peripheries that can become centres. After all, many other examples can be found of a periphery that neighbours on an area which may serve to relativize its apparent marginality. The first part of the study is dedicated to more general observations about cultural transfer, especially in relation to the Enlightenment and the dichotomy of centre vs periphery. The second part focuses more concretely on relations between the Czech Lands and German Protestant regions, with emphasis on culture transfer between Bohemia (particularly Prague) and Saxony, (Leipzig and Dresden). This cultural exchange is presented using examples mainly from science, literature, and the book market.

The article examines the factors that affect the image of Spain on the world stage, which allows the state to develop economically, conduct a powerful foreign policy and influence international processes. As the main directions of this research, attention is focused on the export of book products of the Kingdom of Spain to the countries of the world, numerous international book fairs and events to popularize the Spanish language and culture in the world. The article presents how a planned policy for learning the Spanish language is implemented in Spain, defines the role of various organizations in the preparation and implementation of events aimed at popularizing Spanish culture in the world. It is concluded that the Spanish model of spreading the national language and culture on the world stage is quite successful. The experience of Spain's active participation in the work of international organizations can be useful for imitation in Ukraine, since our country lacks consistent and convincing steps to assert its own role and weight in modern world politics.

Abstract. The article traces the history of foreign literature publishing in the first post-revolutionary five-year period (1917–1922) – from Lenin’s Decree on the Press, which initiated Soviet book publishing, to the book exhibition in Florence, which summarised the interim results of the early Soviet book publishing policy. The institutionalisation of the publishing industry in those years went hand in hand with the process of overcoming the reputational crisis resulting from the revolutionary events. One of the main tasks in the conditions of redefining the political orientations of Soviet Russia was the search for international “allies”. Therefore, the publication of foreign literature was included not only in the cultural context, but also in the diplomatic context. The young regime could not control the production of foreign literature, unlike the production of Soviet literature, although it tried tirelessly (sometimes not unsuccessfully) to influence creative practice beyond its control. This inability to restructure literary life beyond the borders of the USSR became an important reason to change the strategy of interaction with it. The aesthetic policy used all available means to form in the “mass” reader an alternative, detached from reality idea of the structure of the “global” literary process and the balance of power on the world cultural map of the first half of the twentieth century. The result of the authorities’ work in this direction was a fairly rapid penetration of Soviet books into the pan-European cultural environment. The article is based on numerous materials on the history of early Soviet book publishing and book statistics, and is accompanied by an appendix containing a bibliographic list of all foreign literature books (published in Gosizdat and World Literature) presented at the Florence Book Fair of 1922.

This panel will feature presentations from faculty from three universities with programs that offer study abroad opportunities for master’s-level Library and Information Science (LIS) students. This panel is designed to open a larger discussion pertaining to study abroad and will focus on the following objectives: To provide examples of creative study abroad initiatives. To generate discussion on the value of international experiences. To discuss the importance of cultivating an experience that fosters understanding of the “other” culture(s) through engagement and learning. To provide examples of in-person extended experience for students who may be in online programs. Marie L. Radford and Lilia Pavolvsky will describe study abroad opportunities at Rutgers. Radford leads a Master of Information (MI) hybrid course “British Collections and Archives.” This is a three-credit summer session course with nine days at Wroxton College in England in addition to online modules. It includes visits to libraries and archives in London and surrounding areas, such as the British Library, The National Archives, the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, the Library and Archives of the Shakespeare Center at Stratford-upon-Avon, and Bletchley Park. The course involves lectures by noted British scholars and librarians on trends in academic and public libraries, digital preservation, and archival studies. Students learn about how libraries and archives function with different systems of government, different funding models, and different credentialing practices. Additionally, Rutgers offers study abroad for an International Children’s Literature course, that includes a visit to the annual Bologna Children’s Book Fair, in Italy. This event attracts global book publishers and member organizations of "ibby" the International Board on Books for Young People. Graduate students have the unique opportunity to explore ways of creating text, art, and design for children and teenagers while meeting experts on youth literacy from many nations. Also, we will share plans to offer international experiences to graduate students that include professional conferences and other opportunities for open discourse to discover many truths beyond the boundaries of their local professional and scholarly communities. These experiences will be designed to offer travel to environments in which students have the opportunity to engage in dialogue that is not only inclusive of perspectives of international LIS scholars, practitioners, and students, but which also enables an exchange of cross-cultural ideas to promote mutual understandings. Lisa O’Connor will discuss the origins of her study abroad course to Northern Ireland and Ireland, which she first developed at the University of Kentucky. Frustrated with her predominately white, middle-class students’ intractable view of their culture as innocuous, she hoped that a study abroad experience would help students gain the distance and objectivity they needed to see patterns of domination and repression in another culture and, as a result, better see these patterns in their own. Her course examines whose culture is preserved and whose is not, and who controls the dissemination of information (and thus the narrative) surrounding cultural conflict. Students examine the narrative on “The Troubles” as it was promulgated by mainstream, pro-British American media prior to their in-country experience. Students are able to contrast (1) the treatment of indigenous Irish culture with colonized British culture, and (2) messages disseminated about Irish resistance with those of the colonizer, in order to understand the roles information and information policy play in reproducing cultural hegemony, Data gathered from students indicate that the study abroad experience does in fact increase cultural humility and provide a transformative experience that helps them see “truth” as conditional rather than absolute and to ask, “who controls the narrative” in cultural conflict. Matthew Saxton will describe the International Exploration Seminar program and how MLIS graduate students have engaged in study abroad for over 10 years in multiple countries (Netherlands, South Korea, New Zealand, Ghana, Denmark, United Kingdom, Austria, Ethiopia, and Portugal). Themes of seminars have included urban informatics, cross-cultural adoption of information technology, polarization and inclusion in different societies, information literacy, and children’s literature and “own voices” in publishing. The presentation will focus in depth on the South Korea seminar as a case study that has run for 12 years and engaged over 180 US students and an equal number of Korean students. Students examine the interaction of culture, adoption of information technology, and use of social media, and consider such questions as: Do US and Korean students use social media in similar or different ways? How do they communicate, share, and validate information? We examine the cultural, economic, social, and political factors that shape the online information environment of both societies. Presenters will engage the audience in lively discussion and exchange of ideas. Discussion topics will center on the purpose and value of international experiences in graduate study, planning and investment on part of the institution, incentives for student recruitment, preparation of faculty, and building effective international partnerships.