SALAMistas at Guadalajara's 25th Feria Internacional del Libro (FIL 2011)

• By: Adan Griego
• On: 12/05/2011 13:17:28
• In: Book Fairs & Trip Notes

Even before landing in Guadalajara for the 25th annual Feria Internacional del Libro (FIL) SALALM  was already present via virtual spaces.  On November 16th SALALM's Webinar Pilot Project Working Group led a online orientation for new FIL attendees for more than  40 virtual participants.  A follow-up session was held in Guadalajara (Sunday November 26) with participation from other SALAMistas:  Hortensia Calvo (Tulane University), George and Virginia Gause (Univ. of Texas-Panamerican) and Adán Griego (Stanford).
This year SALALMistas constituted about 20% of the ALA-FIL attendees with activities in/out of the exhibit hall:
*Ulrike Mühlschlegel, Berlin's Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut, gave the keynote speech at the 18th Coloquio Internacional de Bibliotecarios.
*Alison Hicks (Colorado) and Adán Griego (Stanford) also participated as speakers at the Coloquio.
*This year marked FIL's 25th anniversary and to celebrate the occasion, groups of 25 professionals in several different fields were awarded honors.  In the "librarian" category Micaela Chávez Villa (El Colegio de Mexico) and Adán Griego were among  the 25 professionals from Mexico and the United States honored for their contributions to the Fair and the Coloquio. Also honored were former ENLACE fellows Helen Ladrón de Guevara (1988) and Jesus Lau (1996) as well as former SALALM member Barbara J. Ford. It was under Barbara's ALA presidency that the current ALA-FIL pass was started.
*As in previous years, Jesus Alonso Regalado (University at Albany-SUNY) shared his varied FIL activities via Facebook.
*Paloma Celis Carbajal (Wisconsin), Socrates Silva (UCLA), Luis Gonzalez (Indiana) and Martin Sanchez (Libros Mexicanos) attended the Noche Cartonera as part of "La otra FIL" events.
*As professional days came to an end, several SALALMistas embarked on a trip to the neighboring town of Tequila and got a behind the scenes tour on how tequila drinks are made. They also visited the CodexMexico artist book exhibit. A handsomely illustrated catalog of the exhibit is available for sale through your Mexico distributor.
FIL closed on Sunday (December 4th) with a record of more than 658,000 attendees. Probably the event that will be remembered most was the presentation the night before by the telegenic presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto who could not name books that influenced him most.