Críticas Magazine

Adriana V. Lopez

The 26th Annual Smoke-Free Liber Report
October 12, 2008

This year’s new and slightly improved Liber is over. Its guest was Quebec and it was held in Barcelona last week from the 8-10th.  I noticed things about the fair this year that were better but at the same time worse. Because it was held in a new section of the Fira, not the regular one near Plaça Espanya but far out in the middle of nowhere (right near nowhere, see pic below), the commute was made hairier. I exaggerate, but that’s how it felt when my crew and I that first night, all dressed up for the opening cocktail party and running late, arrived at the old pavilion we were used to going to,only to find it dark and deserted. Not even a sign to tell us where the new venue was. We made a phone call to an editor friend attending Liber, and she told us directions and the furniture warehouse to look for nearby it. Then we had to flag down and pay another cab whose driver whipped us around a circular via a few times before we could figure out which Pavilion 1 of the Gran Via exhibition centre was.

Fine, we found it. But then nobody in my party of three brought the invitations with them and with the new high tech magnetic turnstiles in the pavilion, if you didn’t have an invite or barcode handy, Mrs.Mean security guard was not letting you in. This was not like years before in the old pavilion when anyone in a suit could just breeze in for a free glass of cava. Luckily a member of my crew called a gentlemen co-worker already inside and he came to the rescue with the bar-coded passes and a smile. Relief. I was ready for a glass of wine and a member of my crew needed a smoke. But no, she had to take that naughty habit outside of the pavilion this year…hurray for a miraculous change within Spainland….smoke free air at Liber, folks! I remember attending numerous meetings at Liber and having to put up with chain-smoking editors at 10am in the morning right after I had washed out the cigarette odor from my hair from the night before. Smoke be gone.

So aside from various complaints from Barcelona’s publishing natives (not so much from the international visitors) about how "out of the way" the new pavilion was (many didn’t even bother to show up, hmph), there were those who talked about liking, yes liking,  the improved conditions of the new showfloor and its tasty buffet-style restaurant to take a break in. Liber 2009 will be back in Madrid, but for 2010, if and when it’s back in Barcelona (who knows, Liber’s alternate city plan can get fuzzy sometimes), you can do two things if you can’t find a cab (that’s another story for next time) to go to and from the new Gran Via venue: Take the metropolitan railway which takes you from Plaça Espanya to Plaça Europa/Fira in just 5 minutes. Or you can do what the always prepared Roberto Rivas, of Thomas Nelson, did. He found a hotel close by.

Fun fact:

In 2007, the Spanish publishing industry sold over 250 million books, 9.9% more than in

2006, with a turnover of 3,123 million euros. In 2007, more than 357 million copies and

70,520 titles were published with an average print run of 5,070 copies per title.

Companies belonging to the guilds of Catalonia (53.3%) and Madrid (40.4%) accounted

for 93.7% of total turnover. For more publishing reports, visit the Spanish Federation of Publishing’s site: www.federacioneditores.org

Another fun fact:
This year’s Liber Award winner was….Jorge Herralde. He founded Editorial Anagrama in 1969.


Liber 2008

Far Out Barcelona: An aerial view of Pavilion 1 of the Gran Via Center

Posted by Adriana V. Lopez on October 12, 2008 | Comments (0)