"The development of Internet will not at all weaken the role of the Frankfurt Book Fair," said Holger Ehling, chief press officer and director of Press & Corporate Communications for the event, in an interview with China.org.cn. Ehling doesn't believe that information technology will change the form of the book fair in the future.

"Even for people who wish to place texts on the Internet, they will still have to negotiate the licenses to do so," he said. The parties involved will have to agree on international writing licenses, co-productions, and usage of characters.

"We have had slightly less visitors, about 1 percent less visitors than last year," Ehling said. The first three days of the book fair are trade professional days, meaning only booksellers, librarians, and people who are connected with book trade are allowed inside. The number of people in this group has already reached 44,000. Saturday and Sunday are public days, so everybody is welcome. Normally the number of public visitors for these two days is around 20,000.

"We have slightly less exhibitors, 4 percent less than last year," Ehling continued, "Mostly the downturn is entirely due to Germany where the economic line is not very good at the moment." He doesn't think there are other reasons.

The book fair has seen a slight increase in national exhibitors, especially among the smaller countries where numbers have risen from either 5 to 7 or from 10 to 12 exhibitors. Of the bigger countries, Germany, for instance, has about 2,000 exhibitors, the United Kingdom, the second largest exhibiting country, has about 800 contributors, and the United States, the third largest exhibiting country, has some 730 participants. However, each of these countries has shown a general decline in the number of partakers.

"Overall, we are very satisfied," Ehling said.

TV books, and books by and about TV people have become a new trend at the book fair. By this, Ehling means that marketing dollars in these areas is on the rise, and that people are paying more money for these kinds of books.

Electronic publications still don't play a major role in publishing. In the United States the situation is slightly better. There are more texts available online with more people likely to spend money on the necessary hardware and downloads.

Ehling also elaborates the central theme of the book fair. The idea of "Bridges for a World Divided" means that we have a significant number of related book exhibits, presentations, and readings. "We focus on countries from the southern hemisphere, or the third world countries. We cannot simply try to mould the world in our image. We have to listen to these countries much more. And we have to read them," he said.

Last year in 2001, the publishing industry of Germany remained stable, neither increasing nor decreasing. This year, Ehling said, the country is expecting a downturn of between 2 and 3 percent in sales. This is mainly due to the fact that people are buying cheaper books.

The Frankfurt Book Fair is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Book Trade Association which is made up of both publishers and booksellers. The Frankfurt Book Fair employs about 60 people. The main work is to organize not only the book fair, but also the presence of German books and German publishers for about 25 international book fairs per year. This is done in cooperation with the German Foreign Office and the German Office for Trade.

The arrangement of the whole event takes a long time. "Before the Book Fair 2002 began, we started organizing the Book Fair for 2003. By the time the Book Fair 2002 had opened, everyone was already concentrating on what needed to be done for next year's event. It's really a very complicated process," Ehling said.

(china.org.cn by staff reporter Li Jinhui, October 15, 2002)