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| Fabian Paagman welcomes RISE attendees. | |
The 4th annual RISE Bookselling Conference began Sunday morning, with hundreds of booksellers from across Europe convening in Verona, Italy, for two days of education and connection.
The conference, which is modeled after Winter Institute and organized by the European and International Booksellers Federation, comes at a time when freedom of expression is under increasing pressure, especially within Western societies usually considered "open and democratic," noted EIBF president Fabian Paagman, owner of Paagman bookshops in the Netherlands. Meanwhile the rise of AI continues, with the absence of regulation allowing "powerful players to reshape markets, often at the expense of others," and ignore "the rights of creators." This year's conference also coincides with the 80th anniversary of the Associazione Librai Italiani, the Italian Booksellers Association.
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| Luuk van Schaik of the Netherlands, Desislava Grosdanova of Bulgaria, Kristine Pikenena of Latvia, and Hannah Frisell of Sweden shared their thoughts on the future of bookselling. | |
The day's keynote speakers included futurist Stefan Carsten, who urged booksellers to "open your doors" and consider the spaces outside their bookshops; Jorge Cabezas Montañana, co-owner of Somnis de Paper in Benetússer, Spain, who described how his bookstore and community recovered from the floods that devastated parts of Valencia in October 2024; and author Espérance Hakuzwimana, who advocated for the inclusion of diverse voices and marginalized authors as a way of transforming bookshops "from places with books to spaces of belonging."
Education sessions included panels on how young booksellers see the future of bookselling; advice for navigating public procurement contracts in the E.U.; tips for creating long-lasting book clubs; and discussion groups on self-censorship in bookshops.
More keynotes and panels, with topics including sustainable bookselling and attacks on bookstores, are scheduled for tomorrow, and more coverage will appear in Shelf Awareness. --Alex Mutter