Sharing the news with book family
Biblionea is a new bimonthly publication from the National Book Center of Greece (EKEBI). Compact and informative, Biblionea is targeted at «all those people in the book family,» says EKEBI’s director Catherine Velissaris, in an interview with Kathimerini English Edition. «The idea was to create some form of liaison bulletin that would make it easier to provide information to writers, publishers, bookstores, librarians and official bodies,» Velissaris says. «We want every member of the family to know what their brothers, sisters and cousins in the book family are thinking and saying and doing. Until now, there had been no such framework and I thought it would be interesting to try and develop one. Sharing information is always enriching.» EKEBI already plans to send Biblionea to 3,000 people, and Velissaris expects subscribers to increase considerably. The first issue is available online at www.ekebi.com. The first issue covers plenty of ground in its six pages. It features EKEBI’s efforts to promote Greek books at home and abroad. There’s news of book-related events around the world, reports on the campaign by the Panhellenic Federation of Publishers and Booksellers on behalf of school libraries, preparations for the Thessaloniki Book Fair that will put Greek books firmly on the map, and a proposal by the National Endowment for the Arts in the United States to co-fund the translation of two books a year from Greek to English.
