JEDDAH, 13 November 2003 — The second Jeddah Book and Information International Exhibition is attracting more visitors than last year and has a better variety of books on display, according to some visitors. The exhibition kicked off last week at the Jeddah International Exhibition Center.
The organizers say it is bigger and better organized than last year. “Exhibits in previous years were purely commercial, but this year, under the supervision of King Abdul Aziz University, we issued some rules for publishers,” said Dr. Anas Tashkandi, president of the organizing committee from KAAU.
“Book exhibitions are one of the main channels for publishers to market their stock, but one of our rules was for the publishers to present new books that have been published within the last three years, and no junk books,” he told Arab News.
Some 230 Saudi, Arab and international publishers are participating this year, according to Dr. Tashkandi. “The delegates from the Ministry of Information have been very cooperative and are working hard at looking over the books and clearing them quickly for presentation. As in any exhibition there are some restrictions, but not many publications have been banned,” he said.
However, during the first three days there were still a few empty stalls and some participants were busy emptying boxes of books while others were waiting for the ministry to clear theirs.
“It’s not the organizers’ fault that we’re still emptying a couple of boxes. We were participating in the Makkah book exhibit which ended the day this one opened,” said Ameen Al-Khodari of Dar Al-Fikr Al-Arabi of Egypt.
But another foreign participant with empty shelves behind him said his books were still being reviewed by the ministry. Yet another complained that there isn’t much attendance, especially during the day, because of Ramadan and because there has not been enough publicity. “It’s been three days, and most of us haven’t sold a thing,” he said.
However, Arab News noticed that people were buying some books, and the few we spoke said attendance this year is up a little and there is a better variety of books.
“There is a bigger collection of interesting books. There are family and children’s books and educational material — and surprisingly some books on the environment which we rarely see,” said Hanadi Zaidan.
Although most of the books are Islamic, followed by literature, more subjects are covered this year. Science, however, hardly gets a look in.
“I have seen several new publications not found in bookstores yet, and there are some books that were prohibited before. I think the problem with the attendance is that this is exam week for students so the parents are busy tutoring their children and can’t bring them to the exhibition, which is a shame,” said Muhammad.
The event ends tomorrow.
