The Małopolska Book Fair – Heritage recorded locally is a literary fair event organised in the Małopolska (Lesser Poland voivodeship - southern region of Poland) by the local Foundation of Art, Adventure and Pleasure ARTS. In 2020, the Fair accompanied the European Heritage Days (EHD), of which the Foundation was the coordinator. The event was a highlight on the agenda and, together with the accompanying programme, was one of the most important EHD projects in Małopolska. The first edition of it took on a virtual form, which we plan to expand into a hybrid form, combining virtual and real space.

The Małopolska voivodeship encompasses the territory of one of the 16 voivodeships in Poland and is an important region from the historical and cultural perspective of the country: on the lands of this area two distinctive cultures have developed, the Cracovians and the Highlanders, which contributed to the emergence of new styles linking both of them. Their manifestations can be seen in literature, art, music, costume and ornaments. The unique characteristics distinguish the Lesser Poland not only from the rest of Polish voivodeships, but also from foreign regions. The Małopolska Book Fair is an opportunity to present this heritage. During the Fair, we present publications about the region and the profiles of authors who explore the subject of local cultural assets. Works presented at the Fair include those dealing with issues related to Małopolska, works by local artists or published by local publishing houses. By showing the effects of their work, we promote interest in the region, and we encourage other activists to do the same: cultural anthropologists, local leaders, managers, employees of cultural institutions and members of local associations.

Therefore the uniqueness of our Fair lies in the promotion of a special kind of book - the Polish regional book. The aim of the project is to familiarize the audience with publications on the broadly understood heritage of the culturally rich Małopolska region as seen from the local perspective of its inhabitants.

General concept

The Małopolska Book Fair - Locally Recorded Heritage is a biennial literary event lasting several weeks from April to late September. Their culminating point is the celebration of European Heritage Days, held in Poland in September. The specificity of the project lies in the promotion of regional, and thus original and niche books. The priority is to draw attention to publications neglected and insufficiently promoted in the mainstream of publishing, which cannot be found on bookstore shelves even though they are a manifestation of the authors' awareness of and responsibility for the local heritage. By dedicating a separate event to them, we want to encourage local artists to create and record the new, as well as old heritage, and the recipients to familiarize themselves with works created in their own regions.

Work on the current edition will begin in April and continue until the end of September. During that time, authors and publishers will be contacted. We will collect their works published in 2016-2021: books, monographs, albums, thematic catalogues, commemorative chronicles, memoirs, biographies and all other forms dedicated to small homelands and their inhabitants. Meetings and interviews with authors will be recorded as part of one cycle of trips to the places where they create (this context is very valuable for showing the culture of the Małopolska region). The event will combine a book fair with author meetings and discussion panels, but due to the pandemic situation the Fair will mostly move to the Internet and take the form of a literary review. However, thanks to the use of new technologies, it will be possible to reach a larger audience. A specially prepared fair platform will host both the participants' application part (applications will be accepted in the Internet system), and the panel part - profiles of local writers and their publications will be presented there. The latter will be successively compiled in a catalogue to be published after the event. During its duration, interviews with guests in the studio will be streamed, webinars organised, and excerpts from the publication will be published. The speakers will include experts in the field of cultural heritage. In cooperation with Partners and Media Patrons, a nationwide marketing campaign will be carried out.

The Małopolska Book Fair is a non-commercial event aimed mainly at adults and seniors. Adults of working age are a group that, due to their professional activity, mostly do not have time to read literature or learn about heritage. On the other hand, the elderly, whether in retirement age or post-working age, are people who most often do not have the possibility or easy access to books. These are social groups that we want to encourage and activate to read by offering them an event close to their origin or place of residence. The Fair is intended to show the public that regional books are valuable and interesting, and thus to raise their interest in regional literature and familiarise them with the work of local artists, so that they can more often and more willingly reach for the books published locally.

The recipients will also include the authors, i.e. direct participants of the Fair. This is a group of practitioners operating in their own regions: local activists, local leaders, employees of local cultural institutions, authors, documentalists, archivists, managers, members of local organisations: foundations, associations, rural women organisations, universities of the third age, folk universities or simply, various informal groups: collectors, enthusiasts, ordinary-extraordinary inhabitants, publishing their books on local heritage. Very often they create projects at their own expense, as truly civic activities. These publications cannot be found on the shelves of bookstores, and yet they are - apart from the mainstream professional bibliography - an expression of awareness and responsibility for the local heritage. In addition, we want to emphasize the cultural diversity of Poland's heritage, which is why we also want the Fair to include those books that deal with the heritage of minorities (national, ethnic, religious). Hence, we will also turn to organisations working for the benefit of these communities.

I. Preparatory and organisational phase, April 2022 - June 2022

Organisational activities and networking of potential cooperation partners.

The first stage of works will include a series of organisational meetings of the Foundation's employees, volunteers, as well as the inhabitants of the region interested in the initiative, representing local institutions, organisations and associations. Meetings will be held on an ongoing basis at the headquarters of the Foundation, and during them the method of communication in the project will be developed and agreed upon, taking into account the management principles in force at the Foundation. In cooperation with all interested parties, an action plan and a schedule of individual project activities will also be prepared, including:

•              developing the regulations (rules and methods of applying for participants), questionnaire for authors, online application form;

•              establishing the terms and schedule of promotional activities;

•              division into research groups establishing contact with authors, activists and social leaders in the region;

•              establishing cooperation with voivodeship coordinators of the European Heritage Days, during which the Fair is held;

•              delegating a team responsible for initial work on the development of a virtual exhibition platform;

•              selecting a team related to the acquiring of patronages: scientific, expert, honorary and media, which will deal with the preparing cooperation offers / letters / e-mails, etc. to Partners and Patrons, preparing official letters and establishing cooperation with them:

o             honorary patronage: National Patronage of President of Republic of Poland, Honorary Patronage of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Patronage of the National Coordinator of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage, Patronage of the Pedagogical University of Krakow;

o             media patronage - local and nationwide media:

• press: Pismo Folkowe, Gazeta Myślenicka, Myślenicki Miesięcznik Powiatowy Sedno, Książki. Magazyn do Czytania, Nowe Książki, FanBook;
• Internet: portals Kultura Ludowa, Witryna Wiejska, Kultura w Kwarantannie, Kwartalnik Moja Wieś, Histmag.org, Telewizja Internetowa Myślenice, Myślenicka24.pl, Miasto-Info.pl, KMY, głos24; radio: Radio Kraków; TV: TVP3 Kraków.
  
  o             Patronage will also be sought from the Polish Ethnological Society and the National Institute of Rural Culture and Heritage.

•               preparation of information packages for the media;

  •              signing the relevant contracts, obtaining the required approvals for the event.

  Target groups:

  •              Foundation staff (initiator and main project implementer), collaborators and volunteers (both specialists in the field of culture and ethnology, as well as non-professional enthusiasts and hobbyists, adults and youth) interested in the cultural heritage of the region;

  •              cultural institutions, local government units and media with which cooperation will be established.

  II. Implementation of the technical and logistic part of the Fair, May 2022 - August 2022:

  •              work on the development of an online fair platform - a virtual space for communication and presentation of the Fair (the partner, the Pedagogical University of Krakow in charge of the realisation of the task) and submitting the event to the European Heritage Days platform;

  •              creating a website with an access panel for publishing and editing texts;

  •              ongoing technical maintenance of the Fair’s website www.targidziedzictwozapisanelokalnie.pl, dedicated to all authors and their publications, with a detailed description (where it can be purchased, who the publisher is, the place and year of publication), a biography, and links to online publications.

  •              ongoing updating of the Fair content on the platform: dissemination of information about works and authors by publishing them on the website dedicated to the Fair and on the websites of Partners and Media Patrons;

  •              submitting the event to the European Heritage Days platform;

  •              implementation of discussion panels: recording audiovisual materials with authors, which will include, among others, interviews and original reading of excerpts from publications. The recordings will be carried out in the following formats: recording in the studio independent recordings/recordings of excerpts of publications by authors (all over Poland) or recordings/interviews e.g. on the ZOOM platform;

  •              preparation and printing of the post-fair catalogue containing basic information about the Fair, summary and report on the previous edition, photos of the publications’ covers, information about the participants;

  •              editing texts on the website, supplementing the content of a given publication (links to the publication, interviews, etc.), editing the publication for the post-fair catalogue.

  Target groups:

  •              Foundation staff, volunteers, partners cooperating in the project;

  •              authors, creators and regional artists of the Myślenice area, regional activists, local leaders, managers, employees of cultural institutions and members of associations operating in the region.

  III. Cooperation with authors, May 2022 - August 2022:

  •              preparation and publication on the Fair website a webinar for authors discussing the project regulations and the registration rules of the Fair;

  •              recruitment of authors to participate in the Fair through: website, form, mailing, Partners’ contacts;

  •              processing of applications and their publication on the Fair website;

  •              field trips in order to make recordings, interviews with authors;

  •              ongoing contact with the authors during the project via telephone or e-mail contact;

  •              promoting the profiles of participants during and after the event.

  Target groups:

  •              Foundation staff, volunteers, partners cooperating in the project;

  •              authors, creators and regional artists of the Myślenice area, regional activists, local leaders, animators, employees of cultural institutions and members of associations operating in the region.

  IV. Nationwide marketing campaign (conducted both during and after the event), June 2022 - September 2022:

  •              the campaign will be conducted in cooperation with the National Institute of Cultural Heritage within the framework of the European Heritage Days;

  •              creating a project of a consistent marketing campaign, which will be commissioned to a professional entity and will be used to promote the Fair and participating creators;

  •              it is planned to conduct an advertising campaign mainly on the Internet, including positioning of the Fair website and monitoring its reach;

• preparation and distribution of information about the event and the start of accepting participants’ applications;

  •              development of graphics and marketing texts for the media and for the websites of Partners (including the media) and Patrons;

  •              use of the Foundation's social media and cooperating entities

  Target groups:

  •              Foundation staff, volunteers and youth cooperating in the project;

  •              authors, creators and regional artists from Małopolska, regional activists, local leaders, animators, employees of cultural institutions and members of associations operating in the region;

  •              residents of the Małopolska region and surrounding areas, school students, teachers and employees of local government/cultural units in the region;

  •              enthusiasts of the cultural heritage of the Małopolska region, including Internet users using the OSA platform and the EtnoStoria application, as well as - in a broader perspective - lovers of regional art, folklore and folk culture in Poland.

•            Raising the cultural awareness of citizens on a local scale

The fair aims to strengthen the identity of local communities and contribute to an increase in the level of their participation in the culture of the Małopolska region. Following the idea of participatory approaches to the heritage of UNESCO convention, according to which we are all its custodians, we will offer the public a chance to get to know their own heritage and encourage them to discover it by, among other things, reading books from local publishers and authors. The fair is intended to stimulate and strengthen the interest of the inhabitants of the region, especially young people, in the works of niche authors, the themes of the regions, their traditions, customs, folk art and history. This way, we want to encourage people to care for the cultural heritage of their regions, and in a broader perspective - to strengthen the sense of belonging to the community, not only of Polish but also of European culture.

•              Raising the cultural awareness of citizens on a European scale

A superficial knowledge of Polish folklore and its aesthetic values, low awareness of its context and national and European significance have an influence on the low interest and undervaluation of art and creators working in the field of regional cultures. The cultural potential it contributes to European culture is not recognised. By implementing our project, we want to raise awareness of the importance of the culture of the regions not only on a national scale, but also on a European scale. Additionally, as the European Heritage Days coordinators in Małopolska, we want to encourage the recipients of the Fair to participate in the European Heritage Days, of which our project is a part. Through cooperation within EHD, the Fair promotes the values of common European heritage, which we co-create through Polish native art.

•            Promotion of heritage

The Fair aims to introduce the public to those publications centered around the broad subject of the heritage of the region of Małopolska. By organising an event with a regional theme, and therefore familiar to the recipients, local publications will be presented to a wider audience. We encourage the public to read less popular local books and keep them from oblivion.

•              Support for local authors and publishers

The project’s objectives also include popularising works about the region and promoting valuable cultural, historical, sociological, linguistic and ethnographic content of the Małopolska area. The Fair will give local authors a chance to show their work - it will show that their creations are noticed and appreciated. This way, we hope to encourage them to continue their work, so essential for the documentation of our heritage. Participation in the Fair will disseminate their achievements and increase their presence in the social and cultural life of the region.

•              Facilitating the networking process and strengthening ties among social activists in the region

Organising the Fair will result in creating a space for debate on the role and significance of regional authors and works. Thanks to this, we will provide conditions for strengthening the identity and participation in the culture of local authors, practitioners operating in their own regions: regionalists, local leaders, employees of local cultural institutions, authors, documentary filmmakers, 

archivists, animators, members of local organizations and associations, collectors, enthusiasts, ordinary - extraordinary inhabitants. This way, we will facilitate the process of mutual networking for artists and people interested in their work, and provide information about the creators of our region and their activities.

•              Implementation of new technologies in heritage cultivation practices

Using a specially prepared fair platform, as well as the EtnoStoria mobile application created by the Foundation, preparing a series of video conferences and webinars, and using social media as the main source of information: both factual and promotional, the event has a chance to reach a larger audience, especially young people . The implementation of technological innovations and the transfer of traditional content carriers of local and regional culture into virtual space integrates our project in the general trend of digital transformation in culture. This way, we show that folk culture can be interestingly implemented on the Internet, and that its effectiveness is not limited to direct contact with it. The digitisation of the project will also advance the process of mutual networking between cultural participants on the artist-artist, artist-recipient or recipient-recipient line.