The horizons we want

The books and reading sector is facing a number of major challenges: the ecological transition, digital change, the crisis in cultural practices, competition from screens, editorial concentration, territorial equity... The issues are important, complex and the stakes are immense.

To meet these challenges, we urgently need to bring together the professionals and volunteers who keep this sector alive. Each person is essential, whether they are an artist-author, publisher, bookseller, librarian, etc.

The Agence régionale du livre et de la lecture des Hauts-de-France (Hauts-de-France Regional Agency for Books and Reading) is hosting the debates over two days, with the aim of mapping out working trajectories and collective actions, imagining desirable horizons for our sector, and building alliances and solidarity within this professional universe called "books", which is what we all share.

Publishers and players from French-speaking Belgium will be there as neighbours, to forge close alliances and become partners across borders.