Scanning mania, reading epidemic!

After the huge success of the first holiday edition, the Virtual Library of Publishers is returning with even more panache! As of yesterday, you can find the best books by guests of the Conrad Festival and the Krakow Book Fair on almost 300 citylights in the largest cities of Poland. Scan the QR codes and download free passages. And if you like them – buy e-books from partner distributors of the Virtual Library: Publio, Woblink, Virtualo, and Koobe. They have prepared free e-books and readers, as well as book vouchers and large discounts. More on: www.qr.miastoliteratury.pl.

“This is the second edition of the campaign,” says Izabela Helbin, Director of the Krakow Festival Office. "The first one, organised during the holidays, only covered Krakow. After a huge success (more than 10,000 downloaded book passages), we decided to extend it to cover all of Poland. We hope that readers will love it."

For the first time in history nearly thirty publishing houses from all over the country and four largest e-book distributors have joined forces in order to present the best books of the year to readers and, at the same time, to promote reading with the use of modern technologies. We have the latest publications (we are the first in Poland to present a passage from Janusz Głowacki's latest book, we also offer you passages from Jan Jakub Kolski's and Tymon Tymański's premiering books), crime novels (Åsa Larsson, Yrsa Sigurdardottir), comic books (Nicolas Presl), radio dramas (Dumanowski and Bruno Schulz), children's books, pieces of reportage (by Filip Springer or the Made in Poland anthology, among others), biographies (of Steve Jobs and The Beatles), as well poetry and belles-lettres (including Julia Hartwig's and Szczepan Twardoch's books) for you.

The campaign is organised by the Krakow Festival Office. Its partners include: the Book Institute, as well as the following publishing houses and organisations: a5, Agora, Bona, Czarne, Dodo Editor, the Women's Space Foundation, Insignis Media, Karakter, Koobe, Krytyka Polityczna, Lokator, Muza, New Eastern Europe, Noir sur Blanc, Radio Kraków, Sine Qua Non, Skrzat, the Polish Writers' Association, Świat Książki, W.A.B., WAM, Wielka Litera, Wydawnictwo Akademickie Dialog, Wydawnictwo Literackie, Wydawnictwo M, Wydawnictwo Otwarte, Znak, Znak Literanova, and Znak Emotikon. The campaign's patrons are: Polish Radio 3 and the Malemen magazine.

The Virtual Library of Publishers is one of the series of campaigns carried out by the Krakow Festival Office in order to promote the literary image of the city. The Krakow Festival Office organises two large literary festivals (the annual Conrad Festival and the biennial Czesław Miłosz Festival), eagerly contributes to initiatives of publishing houses which have their offices in Krakow, closely cooperates with the Book Fair – considered to be the most important event for the publishing industry; and supports all initiatives aimed at bringing the residents of Krakow and tourists closer to literature. Apart from that, within the scope of the Reading Malopolska programme, the Krakow Festival Office carries out a number of promotional activities aimed at emphasising the literary potential of the region. Within the past year alone, the Krakow Festival Office has also organised two large international conferences which attracted the greatest figures of the literary world to Krakow, including representatives of UNESCO Cities of Literature, as well as members of PEN International and ICORN. In addition to that, an interactive multimedia Internet portal – readingmalopolska.pl – was created as a compendium of knowledge on literary attractions of the region. For more than two years, in co-operation with the Bookeriada.pl portal, the Krakow Festival Office has organised The Second Life of a Book – a huge free book swap campaign that has gained the readers' recognition and attracts hundreds of reading enthusiasts every month. It is no coincidence that Krakow was the first city in Poland to mark Seats for Readers in public transportation vehicles; this was done to celebrate the Miłosz Year two years ago.