At Madrid’s Casa del Lector complex in the city’s Matadero development. Image: Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
‘Our Commitment to Reading as a Driving Force’
Y‘ll recall last week’s report on the 2024 Barometer of Reading and Book Purchasing Habits in Spain from the Federación de Gremios de Editores de España, , the Federation of Spanish Publishers’ Guilds (FGEE).
Today, we have news that FGEE and the Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez (GSR) in Madrid have made an agreement to collaborate on a framework “that seeks to consolidate the role of reading in society and promote innovation in the publishing sector, with special attention to the training of professionals and the international visibility of Spanish books.
The “Foundation GSR,” as many Publishing Perspectives readers know it, is the producing body of the annual Readmagine conference at the foundation’s Casa del Lector (Reader’s House) complex in the Spanish capital.
And it’s the leadership of both the publishers’ federation and the GSR who are behind the new effort to formalize and craft a dedicated construct in which to focus on developing and advancing reading.
Luis González is the director-general of the Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez, an independent and nonprofit foundation created in 1981.
José Manuel Anta is managing director of the FGEE, the International Publishing Distribution Association (IDPA) as well as the Federation of National Associations of Publications in Spain (FANDE).
Luis González, left, and José Manuel Anta
Together, with such a strong trend in new levels of reading for pleasure out just last week, the time is auspicious for two of the Spanish market’s major institutional influencers in the publishing market. as González puts it, “to work together with the organization that represents the Spanish publishing world and has always been a pillar in the defense of books and reading.”
Speaking for the FGEE, its president Daniel Fernández, states: “With this agreement, we reinforce our commitment to reading as a key activity and driving force for the development of societies.
Daniel Fernández
“In addition, we will work together to support publishing companies to train in new business models with the aim of maintaining ourselves as the leading Spanish cultural industry.”
As the publishers’ federation and the Foundation GSR describe it, what they’re doing is establishing “a joint line of work that reinforces the promotion of reading, with both institutions committing to promoting the demonstration of the positive impacts of reading books and to spreading a message that works as a genuine marketing engine in favor of reading.”
The Strategic Vision of the Entire Publishing Sector’
The idea is “to develop experimental actions and knowledge generation” that demonstrate how “higher-level” reading—as the Ljubljana Reading Manifesto, well-known to our readership, puts it. Underlying the project is the Ljubljana Manifesto’s understanding that serious reading can “enhance critical thinking and, consequently, the democratic quality of society” as Fernández puts it.
Publishing Perspectives readers know many aspects of the movement developing around the Ljubljana Manifesto and higher-level reading from the manifesto’s presentation at Frankfurter Buchmesse as part of the 2023 Guest of Honor Slovenia program.
Kristenn Einarsson
That work has also found a hub at Lillehammer’s World Expression Forum, WEXFO, led by its founding managing director, Kristenn Einarsson.
In an article at the WEXFO site, Einarsson writes that the conclusion of the Ljubljana Reading Manifesto is “that we must ‘understand that reading is our culture’s central training technique for cognitive and social behavior—a prerequisite for a well-functioning democracy.’
The main message of the report is that we must consider reading as more than just decoding texts. We need to encourage what is known as “higher-level reading,” a literacy skill developed through critical and conscious reading, as well as the willingness to engage with lengthy texts. To sharpen our reading skills, it’s essential to read books.”
One reason that the Foundation GSR and the FGEE are able to make their agreement on this material is that the Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez‘s still-young PARIX program in Madrid has become an intensely popular school targeting professionals in literary creation and translation; illustration; proofreading; editing; graphic arts; distribution; and bookstores; to bolster those practitioners’ skills in the digital context.
PARIX has the support of Spain’s ministry of culture as part of its “recovery plan.” Through the work PARIX does for publishing professionals with specialized training, the FGEE and Foundation GSR have a logical and ready channel through which to develop and amplify the movement in support of “higher-level” reading, its value to critical thinking and a national and international construct of free societies.
In addition to retaining “high-level talent” to communicate the tenets of the new collaboration, the program-in-development is open to joint research and projects, according to González and Anta, “with the possibility of analyzing the challenges and opportunities of Spanish publishing, as well as participating in European initiatives that promote green competitiveness and the transformation of the sector.
“This collaboration also includes the organization of national or international events around reading and books, with the aim of enriching the debate and the strategic vision of the entire publishing sector.”
More on reading and the world publishing industry is here, more on Spain and its book market is here, more on the Ljubljana Reading Manifesto is here, more on the Foundation GSR is here, and more on publishing in Europe is here.
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