At the Jaume Fuster Library, Barcelona,, by Lauren Manning. Image: CC BY 2.0
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
‘A Commitment to Reading’
As Publishing Perspectives readers know, the Liber publishing trade fair series in Spain divides itself between Madrid and Barcelona, and this time, Liber 25 will be hosted by Madrid, October 7 to 9.
Devised for publishing professionals, as opposed to a public-facing fair, the trade show drew some 11,000 trade visitors in 2024, representing 458 companies, with 180 journalists and 132 media outlets on hand from 51 nations.
The 2025 iteration will be its 43rd edition, once more organized by Ifema Madrid and promoted by Spain’s Federation of Publishing Guilds, the Federación de Gremios de Editores de España (FGEE). Several annual awards come along with each edition of Liber, and one is a recognition of a reading-promotion program. Last year’s winner in this category was the Espazo Lectura (Reading Space) program that promotes and encourages reading in the Galician language.
This year, the FGEE has chosen the Jaume Fuster Library in Barcelona as the recipient of this award for the best reading promotion initiative in public libraries. Fuster (1945-1998) was a translator, essayist, and writer in Catalan who helped found the Association of Writers in the Catalan language.
And the Jaume Fuster Library, of course, is iconic in its own right for its physical design—by Josep Antoni Llinàs i Carmona and Joan Vera i Garcia—as an urban landmark opened in 2005. It was Barcelona’s 28th public library at the time it opened as part of the Plaça de Lesseps area in the Gràcia district. With an auditorium that can seat 250 and an exhibition hall, the Jaume Fuster has become the most-visited public library in Barcelona’s system.
An exterior view of the Jaume Fuster Library in Barcelona. Image: CC BY SA 4.0 by Canaan
A ‘Close Collaboration With the Publishing Industry’
The announcement to the news media of the FGEE’s selection for the Liber Award this year points to the library’s “close collaboration with the publishing industry, along with bookstores and professional associations,” much of which has helped make the facility “a prime showcase for the dissemination of new releases and meetings with prominent authors, as well as retrospective exhibitions on publishing and books.
“With a history marked by a commitment to reading as a tool for social inclusion, intercultural and intergenerational dialogue, and the development of critical thinking, the Jaume Fuster Library has established itself as a benchmark for reading promotion.”
The library will collect its award at the October 8 ceremony in which several such Liber awards will be formally conferred. That event is scheduled for the Conde Duque Cultural Center as part of Liber 2025. During the program, the program will again present an award for the best audiovisual adaptation of a literary work (the film Pedro Páramo); the Liber Award for the promotion of reading in the media (journalist Antonio Martínez Asensio; and the “Boixareu Ginesta” Award for bookseller of the year (Ciudad Real’s Serendipia).
There’s also a Liber Award for an outstanding Ibero-American author, and a “Liber Tribute” honor.
More from Publishing Perspectives on book and publishing awards is here, more on the Spanish market is here, and more on Spain’s industry-oriented Liber series of trade shows in Barcelona and Madrid is here.