The Qatar National Library stall at the 25th edition of the Book Fair. 26th Doha International Book Fair all set to open on Wednesday. By Anand Holla
Following an unprecedented turnout at the 25th Doha International Book Fair from both inside and outside of Qatar – the 26th Doha International Book Fair will be held from December 2 to 12 with expectations of an even better turnout.
The fair will be held at the Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC), the venue which is believed to be one of the reasons for the heavy footfall at the 25th edition of the fair, which was held earlier this year, in January.
Abdullah al-Ansari, the Director of the Doha International Book Fair and also the head of the public libraries at Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage, had then told Qatar News Agency that nearly 700,000 people had visited the event, which celebrated its Silver Jubilee. It’s heartening to note that the number of school students who visited the Fair represented 25 per cent of the total number of visitors – a reason why the upcoming 26th edition of the Fair is being held in early December is so that it would not coincide with the independent schools examinations.
Organised by Dar Al Kutub and the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage, the Doha International Book Fair is an annual event that provides a unique platform for a diverse range of publishers from Qatar, the region and the world, to showcase their books to the Qatari community.
As hundreds of booths are set to be lined in rows after rows, prepare to make a massive buy of all sorts of literature. One of the many institutions who will be seen at the Fair would be the Qatar National Library (QNL), a member of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF). QNL has stated that it will participate for the second time in the Book Fair.
“The QNL booth at this year’s Book Fair will highlight various sections of the library including the breadth of resources available through their online databases, training programmes and social engagement activities. The QNL team will also be on hand to help visitors register for free and have free access to the library’s wealth of digital resources,” the QNL said.
To top it, a demonstration of Qatar Digital Library (QDL), QNL’s online portal and landmark initiative, which provides free access to digitised historical and rare manuscripts, archival documents and historical photographs, will be provided in recognition of the QDL’s one year anniversary.
In his piece on one of the previous editions, Roger Tagholm had written for the website Publishing Perspectives: “Like Sharjah and Abu Dhabi, it’s a selling fair, effectively a giant bookshop, so once again the aisles are full of families pushing along the familiar, branded (DIBF) cardboard box wheelie trolleys that you see in Abu Dhabi.”
The 24th edition of the Fair, for instance, featured 22,000 books and 360 publishers from 29 countries, with a total of 100,000 titles – 80,000 of which were in Arabic and 20,000 in English. The 25th edition bettered those figures as it drew 506 publishers from 29 countries. And if you are among those who rue about Qatar not having enough bookshops, spend any of the 10 days – from December 2 to 12 – at the Doha International Book Fair and you are certain to have your fill of literary fuel for the whole year.
