IPA President, Karine Pansa, delivered one of the closing lectures as part of the Advanced Publishing Institute run by the Center for Publishing and Applied Liberal Arts (PALA) at the NYU School of Professional Studies.
Pansa’s lecture was entitled The Global Perspective… and Responsibility and covered the range of individual responsibilities publishers face as well as their collective responsibilities and the work of national and international publishers’ associations to promote the amazing work publishers do.
Pansa was able to combine the API with a visit to IPA’s member in the USA, the Association of American Publishers.
While Pansa was in the USA, IPA Vice President, Gvantsa Jobava, was invited for the 2nd Chennai International Book Fair in India. As part of her speech at the opening ceremony she spoke of the impressively diverse Indian publishing market as well as IPA’s pillars of copyright and the freedom to publish. She underlined the importance of culture, reading and language as part of society. Jobava participated in other sessions during the fair and was presented with a CIBF Global Ambassador Award.
Finally, IPA was represented at the meeting of the UNESCO World Book Capital (WBC) City Network meeting from 17 to 19 January 2024 in Guadalajara, Mexico. This 4th meeting of the WBC City network meeting brought together representatives from Accra, Athens, Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Conakry, Kuala Lumpur, Ljubljana, New Delhi, Strasbourg, Rio de Janeiro, Tbilisi, Turin and, of course, Guadalajara which was WBC in 2022-2023. Together with the delegates from UNESCO, IPA, AIF and IFLA, the network discussed current achievements and future aspirations of the WBC network and exchanged ideas about the promotion of books and reading.
IPA inspired this initiative which, since 2001, awards each year the WBC title to a city to acknowledge its commitment to promote books and foster reading during the period between one World Book and Copyright Day (23 April) and the next. IPA, along with UNESCO, the International Authors Forum (IAF), the European and International Booksellers Federation (EIBF) and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) is a member of the WBCC Advisory Committee.