ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 146 / C&RL News ■ M arch 2004 CONFERENCE CIRCUIT The Frankfurt Book Fair ACRL’s fifth year by Janet Crayne and Marta Deyrup ACRL held an exhibit of American libraries at the 2003 Frankfurt Book Fair, O ctober 8 - 13. The fair, which draws several hundred thou­ sand visitors from Europe, Asia, and the Americas each year, is the largest book trade event of its kind in the world. Although American librarians have other opportunities to meet with small groups of publishers and distributors, this fair provides librarians with the unique opportunity to devote an uninterrupted w eek to the development of their collections. During the fair, promoters arrange for celebri­ ties to participate in discussions, performances, and interviews. Outside, in the central plaza that separates the pavilions, vendors sell everything from food to crafts to souvenirs. After the fair closes for the evening, publishers, booksellers, vendors, and librarians take their business into restaurants or cafés, where discussions, conversa­ tions, and networking continue. Despite all of the festivities, the fair is first and foremost a business enterprise, where books, other print materials, and publishing rights are negotiated, bought, sold, and traded as commodi­ ties. In this environment libraries and librarians occupy only a small portion of book fair business. While conducting their own business, however, they have the opportunity to witness firsthand how international publishing business is conducted. The guest of honor Each year, the fair hosts a special guest of honor, which, at the 2003 show, was Russia. Organizers from the Russian ministries and publishing houses provided book readings, performances, art exhibits, film showings, receptions, and special displays throughout the six-day event. Two photographic exhibitions, “St. Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad- St. Petersburg: XX Century in Photographs” and “Russia-New Pages,” highlighted the yearlong cel­ ebration of the 200th anniversary of the founding of St. Petersburg and the changing face of modem Russia. Since the collapse o f the Soviet Union, the Russian publishing industry has grown dramati­ cally, and there are now approximately 6,000 publishing businesses, most of w hich are lo­ cated in St. Petersburg and. Moscow. Both the Russian publishers’ booths and those from East­ ern E urope w ere notable for their sophisti­ cated graphics and use of multimedia displays. B e n e fits to U.S. lib ra ria n s O ne of the advantages of attending the fair is that those o f us w h o w ork w ith publications from o r about other countries or regions can m eet their distributors halfway; more o f them are able to travel to Frankfurt th an to th e United States. Attending the fair is more cost-effective for us, as well. Some o f us cover m ore than 20 countries for o u r libraries, an d it is virtually impossible to travel to each country in order to arrange for the best bibliographic coverage. In Frankfurt w e have a distinct advantage. W ithout travel to publishers an d distributors About the authors Janet Crayne is head o f the Slavic and East European Division at the University o f Michigan, e-mail: jcrayne@umich.edu, and Marta Deyrup is West European and Slavic monographs cataloger and subject specialist for Russian and East European studies atSeton Hall University, e-mail: deyrupma@shu.edu ©2004 Janet Crayne and Marta Deyrup mailto:jcrayne@umich.edu mailto:deyrupma@shu.edu C&RL N ews ■ March 2004 / 147 in Europe, w e w ould lack firsthand informa­ tion about competitive providers and w ould be forced to rely on secondary or biased sources of information about the book trade, such as isolated approval plan suppliers. In other words the fair provides us with a wider range of o p ­ tions for collection development. The fair also provides access to a wide range of publishers and distributors from specific re­ gions. To quote one of the participants: “Where else can you see all the publishers of Quebec, their catalogs arranged alphabetically, the editors from the houses taking their turns in the combined ex­ hibit, there to answer questions like ‘How many books of fiction do you issue in a year?’ Where else can you see all the books in English currently available from the Philippines?” Visitors can also learn more about books and journals from other areas of special interest (e.g., African, Russian Orthodox, juvenile), get to know statistical publications and publishers outside the United States, and seek out European resources in the newest electronic format. A C R L's p resen ce Since 1999, ACRL has provided a booth and exhibit at the fair to display and distribute sec­ tion publications, answer questions about the organization, and prom ote U.S. librarianship to the world. Gordon Anderson, librarian for S candinavian an d Slavic Area stu d ies an d Western European Social Sciences at the Uni­ versity o f M innesota Library, did a splendid job organizing all aspects of ACRL’s presence, and he and Beau David Case, field librarian for Classical studies at the University of Michigan Library, proved wonderful guides for the dozen or so ACRL librarians in attendance. A steady Links of interest • Western European studies Section of ACRL Archives of the Frankfurt Book Fair, www.lib.virginia.edu/wess/wessfair.htm • F rankfurt B ook Fair H om epage, w w w .frankfurt-book-fair.com /en/portal. html • Russia Guest of Honor Pages at the Book Fair, w w w .frankfurt-book-fair.com /en/ in d e x .p h p ? c o n te n t= /e n /b u c h m e s s e _ frankfurt/tlp.html • ACRL’s Slavic and East European Sec­ tion, www.gwu.edu/~sees/ stream of visitors dropped by the booth, such as a representative from Ethiopia w ho w anted to know w hom to contact for help in estab­ lishing a university library system there, and a representative from a major online resource provider, w ho w as interested in scholarship relating to patron searching behaviors. Some visitors were very interested in study­ ing librarianship in the United States. In this case, being close to the U.S. Embassy’s America- House exhibit helped us get the right informa­ tion to them. In all, representatives from eleven countries— G reat Britain, Bosnia, Ethiopia, India, Russia, Latvia, Romania, Germany, Ma­ laysia, Netherlands, and Italy—made introduc­ tions and sought information on current issues in libraries and librarianship, docum ent deliv­ ery, and Web services. As in past years, ACRL provided a travel sti­ pend to encourage attendance at the fair. This year, four librarians were grant recipients: Steve Corrsin, head of acquisitions at Wayne State Uni­ versity Libraries; Janet Crayne, head of the Slavic and East European Division at the University of Michigan Library; Marta Deyrup, West European and Slavic monographs cataloger and subject spe­ cialist for Russian and East European studies at Seton Hall University; and Graham Walden, li­ brarian for communication, telecommunication, and Germanic languages and literatures at Ohio State University. M aking an im pact The ACRL booth establishes a high profile both for ACRL and ALA among vendors and librar­ ians worldwide. Moreover, it establishes that profile not in the United States or Canada, but in Europe. We serve as an on-site resource for information on professional librarianship in the United States and all it offers. Samples provide visitors with the opportunity to take home and read some of the best examples of American library scholarship. The broad range of our visitors, including library students, distribu­ tors and publishers, librarians, researchers, and members of the general public, indicate that we are many things to many people—all of them posi­ tive. The booth also provides us, both as Ameri­ cans and librarians, with an opportunity to show our best side. We can readily promote our desire to develop highly specialized country-specific col­ lections through area programs, reflecting posi­ tively on our libraries, universities, and ultimately on our country. http://www.lib.virginia.edu/wess/wessfair.htm http://www.frankfurt-book-fair.com/en/portal http://www.frankfurt-book-fair.com/en/ http://www.gwu.edu/~sees/