00:01İzlediğiniz için teşekkür ederim.
00:30But the story has only just begun.
00:34Spread across a 29,000 square metre space, the book fair has become the marquee event for not only literature
00:41lovers, but also art enthusiasts as well as curious and creative minds.
00:46Making its public debut is this art exhibition by Jawahar Al Sayed.
00:50Titled The Journey, the gallery tells the story of Qatar's transformation from a humble pearl diving port to a global
00:57oil and gas powerhouse.
00:59Every year, the booths of participating organizations are designed to engage readers beyond prose and paper.
01:06Qatar Reads, the country's flagship national reading initiative, has brought the pages of a classic Arabic book collection to life
01:14through its One Book, One Doha program.
01:45We consider reading to be just the first step in our journey.
01:46Also making a debut is the Ministry of Culture's new encyclopedic initiative called This is Qatar.
01:54The collection consists of six main segments telling the nation's story from its historical roots to its cultural heritage, wildlife
02:02biodiversity and societal development.
02:05Launched in 1972, the Doha International Book Fair started with just 20 publishing houses.
02:11Today, that number has grown to more than 500, with up to 50 participating countries every year.
02:18As one of Qatar's pioneering retailers, Samarkand Books believes that the growth also reflects the country's evolving demographics.
02:25When we launched, we mainly focused on Arabic books, but today English books are also on the rise.
02:33Our growth reflects Qatar's maturation as a cosmopolitan society, valuing education and cultural exchange.
02:41The rapid digitalization of the publishing industry has fueled the growth of audiobooks and e-books, which has led to
02:48the demise of many legacy bookstores.
02:55Reports of bookstores' death is kind of exaggerated because we've seen a surge in bookstores between 2024 and 2025.
03:05So I don't think that like AI and digital platforms could replicate books because it doesn't capture the essence of
03:14the book itself.
03:15And in Samarkand, we are trying to build the community and our strategy is to continue to build for them
03:23and provide the books that they fall in love with.
03:26But elsewhere, digitalization is an inevitable trend that the Qatar National Library is choosing to embrace.
03:34One of the activations is called Literary Twin, where people can actually take a quiz, answer some questions and then
03:40the results, they're going to have their twin when it comes to authors.
03:44We do have a virtual tour of the library where people can step into the Qatar National Library and get
03:51to see our facilities and collections as well.
03:53We do have a digitization center where we digitize old books and also new books to make them available online
04:01for people to access them.
04:02Back at Qatar Reads, the One Book, One Doha program aims to stimulate the minds of the young and old
04:09beyond the country's borders through a partnership with the Years of Culture Initiative.
04:15Specifically with Years of Culture, we've had five and as a result, we've also translated our One Book, One Doha
04:21books into four other languages, including Spanish, French, Bahasa for Indonesia and German.
04:29And so all of these books have sort of increased the reach of our programming and they created a space
04:35for cultural exchange.
04:36Because whichever partner country we have with Years of Culture, we also feature that as a theme in the family
04:41reading program here in Doha.
04:43As the chapters of Qatar's story continue to be written, the Doha International Book Fair is where you'll find the
04:49authors, poets and artists who will broaden the country's intellectual horizon one book at a time.
04:59Easterly Beans
04:59End
05:00D
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