Europe’s digital museum, library, gallery and archive – Europeana – will be present at this year’s revamped national book fair, which has been renamed the National Book Festival.
Organised by the National Book Council, the festival will be held from this Wednesday to Sunday at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta.
The council has been organising the event since the 1970s, moving away from the trade fair grounds in Naxxar in 2006.
As in previous years, publishers, authors and bookshops will showcase their old and new publications. This year however, there will be new participants including NGOs such as the Organisation for Maltese Language, the Poets’ Society of Malta, Friends of the National Archives and the Institute of Maltese Journalists. The French Embassy will also be present with a display of publications.
A number of activities for people of all ages will be held by publishers, authors, artists and the council itself, which will also be launching a literary journal to promote emerging and unpublished authors.
In the morning, a daily programme of events will be held for schoolchildren, organised by the Education Department and the Centre for Literacy of the University of Malta, among others.
Europeana, together with its Maltese partner AcrossLimits, is urging people to attend the festival and help create a giant canvas depicting the image from Europeana.eu that the public has voted for as representing Malta’s European cultural heritage.
The image, an old map of Malta, will be recreated on a three-metre by two-metre canvas and the finished piece will be displayed in December at St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity.
Europeana will also showcase a new eBook called Europeana: Stories from Malta written by 10 Form 1 and Form 2 students.
People can access more than 29 million items from 2,300 leading galleries, libraries, archives and museums on www.europeana.eu.
The festival will be open between 9am and 1pm and from 5pm to 9pm on Wednesday and Thursday, extending to 10pm on Friday, while on Saturday opening hours are from 9am to 12.30pm and 4 to 10pm, and on Sunday between 9am and 8pm.
More details on www.facebook.com/pages/National-Book-Council-Malta/111998682455?fref=ts.