Lahore International Book Fair 2013
THE 27th Lahore International Book Fair (LIBF) continued on its second day at the Expo Centre on Friday.
A large number of people visited the fair and explored the world of books. A number of publishers from foreign countries have also set up stalls featuring books on a variety of topics. The participating organisations in the fair have offered special discount on the books. The book fair will continue till February 18.
(Thenews)
* Stallholders say turnout not as much as previous years
* Indian official says Internet has marred the trend of keeping hard copies
By Arsalan Haider
LAHORE: A large number of people, including students, teachers and professionals, visited the 27th Lahore International Book Fair on its second day on Friday.
However, stallholders claimed the crowd was less than the previous years.
People showed interests in books in different categories, including religion, science, history, philosophy, technology and languages, which have been displayed at around 300 stalls of local and international publishers, as well as booksellers. Bookstalls of foreign publishers remained the focal point of the people, especially the students of engineering, medical and business management institutes.
This year, several stalls have set up by foreign publishers from India, United Kingdom (UK) and United States. Around 20 publishers from India, including Jaypee Brothers Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Pearson Education Publishers, Wolters Kluwer, NCBA Exports, SK Kataria, Manas Punblications, Sunrise Publishers, AITBS Publishers, Asian Education Services, Khel Sahitya Kendra, Cambridge University Press India, Springer India, Vishv Books, Kalyan Publishers, Random Publishers and Sage Publishers, have set up their stalls of different variety of books.
Similarly, John Waley from the UK, Jones and Bartlett from the US, Elsvier Health Sciences India US and UK, al Ghurair Publications from Dubai and Harmony Publications from Turkey have also put on display a variety of books at their stalls.
“People have shown their interest in Indian books, but the number of visitors is lower than the past years,” Random Publication India Export Manager PN Kala told Daily Times. Kala added that globalisation had changed people’s interest and now people preferred collecting information from the Internet rather than books. He said that a huge crowd of real book lovers still existed, who read books on the Internet as well as keep a hard copy. Kala said that there was a need to promote the habit of book reading. “In India, some publishers print books keeping in view the general interests of people, and they have succeeded – to some extent – in reviving the habit of book reading,” he said. Naveen Saini of Macmillan Publishers India said that students had shown special interest in Indian books. He said that other than students, the visitors were in small in numbers.
Meanwhile, the stall of Harmony Publications attracted a lot of readers who showed interest in the Turkish cultural, educational and religious books, besides Urdu translations of Turkish books. The stalls of Oxford University Press, Readings, Liberty Books, Khalid Book, Dogar Publishers, Afaq Publications and many other renowned publishers were also part of the book fair.
(DailyTimes)
