There are 7000 plus publishers or service oriented businesses at the fair, but this is obviously only a selection (though large and representative) of publishers worldwide. Some well established publishers will come to the fair every year – on the whole though, you will find new and different kinds of publishers at each fair.
The fair is an opportunity to see the entire “representative” publishing profile of an established or new publisher, to look at the quality of the books (quality of paper, binding, etc.), to talk about new trends, new initiatives like where a particular publisher stands with regard to ebooks, etc. If I find a publisher whose titles are of interest, I make sure that they are included in our vendor’s database, and if the publisher is not included, I ask to be put on the mailing list to receive a catalog. Western European Studies librarians from American university libraries visited the fair as a group (7 librarians) this year – each of us focused on different aspects of the fair – depending on our home departments – the sharing from the aisles over dinner was both inspiring and fun. Our vendors are always willing to answer the many questions that arise as we browse the booths at the fair….
The exhibit hall with the French publishers had a graph of European Publisher Groups that looked like a railroad map. I took some pictures – and I was able to track down the source:
Bureau Internationale de l’edition francaise: www.bief.org
I will be contacting Livres Hebdo to see if I can get a copy. If any WESS librarian is ahead of me with this – please send a message to the listserv J.
This road map to European publishers was created by Hebdo Livres, I am still trying to find a copy online, or a hard copy from the publisher
