Incheon, South Korea, April 29, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- The South Korean city of Incheon has been designated by UNESCO as this year's "World Book Capital" (World Book Capital), and a series of events to promote the occasion kicked off in grand fashion last Thursday.
The launch of year-round events marks Incheon as the UNESCO World Book Capital 2015
Each year, UNESCO designates a different city to be the World Book Capital for one year to celebrate World Book and Copyright Day (April 23 each year). Incheon is the 15th city worldwide, the third in Asia, and the first in South Korea to be selected as a World Book Capital.
The opening ceremony of the World Book Capital events was held at the Songdo Convensia convention center in Incheon, west of Seoul, with about 500 local and international guests in attendance.
The Incheon municipal government stated that a rich variety of events including exhibitions, meetings with renowned authors, and book fairs will continue throughout the year until April 22 next year. This year’s events will be themed "Books for all" (a world united through books), aiming to promote reading and creative publishing.
Key events will include an exhibition on Korean and Incheon archival culture, scheduled to run from October 30 to November 29 at the Incheon Metropolitan City Museum. Organizers said Korean historical artifacts of global record significance, borrowed from national archives and other state institutions, will also be on display.
These items include the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty (recording history from 1392 to 1910); the "encyclopedia" of Eastern medicine knowledge and treatment techniques, Donguibogam, compiled by the Joseon-era royal physician Heo Jun (Heo Jun); and the original manuscript of Hangeul, the Korean alphabet, titled Hunminjeongeum.
Other events include the first-ever Incheon International Children's and Education Book Fair, scheduled to take place from November 11 to 15 at the Songdo Convensia convention center. The Incheon municipal government said the city plans to differentiate this book fair from others by showcasing a wide range of children's and educational books using South Korea’s advanced information technology equipment.
Activities marking the start of the first week of the 2015 World Book Capital events were launched last Wednesday, including a program for foreign guests to visit historical sites on Ganghwa Island, including remnants of libraries that once housed important royal documents and books during the Joseon Dynasty.
From April 23 to 24, the Incheon municipal government organized a range of activities, including meetings with author Lee Mun-yol (Yi Mun-yol) and other renowned writers, as well as displays of precious first editions of early Korean newspapers and magazines (published around a century ago).
The Incheon municipal authorities also plan to use the opportunity of being designated as the "2015 World Book Capital" to strengthen the city’s reading-friendly infrastructure, aiming to complete a project to build a large-scale digital library by the end of this month.
Once the library is completed, Incheon residents will be able to comfortably read using e-books.
The local government expects these events to create opportunities to promote Incheon’s cultural and humanistic values, helping to shed the city’s old image as an industrial hub.
Incheon Mayor Lee Jung-bok (Yoo Jeong-Bok) said in his congratulatory speech: "As the birthplace of the Tripitaka Koreana, Incheon is a leading city in book publishing culture. Moreover, Incheon is a city with a long history related to Korean archival culture."
The Tripitaka Koreana (known in Korean as Palmandaejanggyeong) is a comprehensive collection of Buddhist scriptures manually carved onto over 80,000 wooden printing blocks, containing 52 million characters. It is considered the most complete version of the Tripitaka discovered to date. The blocks were originally carved and preserved on Ganghwa Island in Incheon to help repel Mongol invaders during the Goryeo Dynasty (918–1392), and were later moved to Haeinsa Temple in Hapcheon County, South Gyeongsang Province, in the early Joseon Dynasty.
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