We have devised this project with several objectives: to bring to the fore the quality, quantity, diversity and richness of Granada’s bookshops; to realise their potential for visibility and promotion; to build bridges between bookshops a nd the reading public; to generate self-esteem and added value; to develop a link between the specific ambit of bookshops and the general sphere of cultural and tourism development in Granada; and to bring bookshops together under a unified concept, idea or image of quality to add to the list of the city’s cultural attractions.
The participants in the project are all retail establishments in Granada whose principal area of business is bookselling. They include general bookshops selling new and secondhand books, as well as specialist bookshops (university, religious, children’s, foreign languages, comics, etc.) and outlets for institutional publications. The project takes the form of a guidebook, city plan or map and the new “Granada UNESCO City of Literature” website.
The book contains verbal and visual information on all the bookshops participating in the project, ordered both alphabetically and by topic area, using coloured lines, as if the shops were connected by an imaginary metro system: Route A for comics, Route B for general and new books, Route C for second-hand and remaindered books; Route D for specialist bookshops, and Route E for institutional bookshops. The book contains a fold-out plan with a QR code, to enable users to locate each specific bookshop with Google Maps or on the “Granada UNESCO City of Literature” website. A separate plan in A4 format has also been published, multiplying yet further the options for promoting the project among potential users.
The 56 bookshops involved in the Project have all received the official Granada City of Literature logo, approved by UNESCO in the spring of 2015, for them to display on their premises and use on their websites. The physical logo, in the form of a metal plaque (20 x 28 cm), is intended to become a badge of prestige and an indication of the bookshops’ commitment to position Granada as a city of culture and literature.
Idea and coordination: Jesús Ortega
Photographs: Antonia Ortega Urbano
Design adn layout: Rafa Simón
Printing: Servigraf
The latest update of the network took place on November 11, 2021, in celebration of Bookstore Day.
