With the Guadalajara International Book Fair having opened on Saturday 29 November and well under way, Congress delegates were able to have a view over the city at the Congress opening reception on 3rd December from the roof top of the Gran Fiesta Americana hotel.
The next morning, the Congress programme proper began at the Conjunto Santander with a compelling keynote from Mexican author Enrique Krauze before the first session saw an all-star panel look at how IPA’s pillars of copyright and freedom to publish drive publishing.
The day’s discussions shifted from reading to publishers as sources of trusted research, and then from the regulation of artificial intelligence to the worrying challenges to the freedom to publish in the educational sector.
The day closed with a stunning gala dinner in the wonderful municipal palace of Zapopan. This was the perfect setting to celebrate the Accessible Books Consortium’s Excellence Award laureates as well as the IPA Champion and IPA Innovation in Publishing Awards. The evening took a more subdued turn as the final awards of the evening were announced. An IPA Prix Voltaire Special Award was announced for murdered Ukrainian author, Victoria Amelina, who had been on stage at the IPA Prix Voltaire ceremony in 2023. The IPA Prix Voltaire was awarded to Palestinian publisher and bookseller, Samir Mansour.
Day two of the Congress opened with a captivating keynote from United Nations Under-Secretary-General, Melissa Fleming who picked up on the question from trust on day 1, and focused on misinformation and disinformation and the role of publishers in combating these threats to our democracies and our societies. She also underlined their support for publishers in the age of AI: We at the UN will continue to demand that AI actors respect copyright
Fleming was followed by 3 quick-fire sessions around the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) looking at what future generations expect from publishing, how we communicate about the climate crisis and how we engage with diversity. These sessions were followed by deep dives into copyright enforcement and the trinity of freedoms – the freedom of expression, the freedom to publish and the freedom to read.
The morning was closed with an emotional reminder of the impact of war on creativity, with Oleksandra Matviichuk demonstrating the situation in Ukraine.
The afternoon’s discussions continued to engage and demonstrate the broad range of issues that publsihers will have to navigate in the years ahead, from copyright exceptions and limitations to accessibility as well as how to communicate the value of publishing.
The day closed with WIPO Deputy Director General, Sylvie Forbin, giving a clear-eyed view of how the Congresses discussions so far underlined the value of publishing and copyright and how the publishing sector needs to continue to engage on policy making in the age of artificial intelligence.
The closing ceremony included the launch of the Guadalajara Declaration (Spanish, German)and the announcement of the Kuala Lumpur as the host of the next Congress in 2026.
The cultural visit of the final day of the Congress gave delegates the opportunity to network while discovering a little more about the local culture in the Jalisco region of Mexico.
