Barcelona City Council has launched a comprehensive support plan for the city’s bookstores, aiming to reinforce their vital role in local culture and community life. Mayor Jaume Collboni presented the initiative on Friday, which includes 15 actions across four key areas: professional training, digital presence, community connection, and structural support through grants.
Mayor Collboni emphasised the importance of these establishments. He stated, “With this first plan to support bookstores, we want to thank the establishments, especially the smaller ones, that perform this fundamental task of cultural dissemination in the city, and contribute to the city’s cultural community life.” He added, “As a municipal government, we wanted to make our contribution to helping those bookstores that make a fundamental contribution to the world of books and the world of reading. We invite citizens to put down their mobile phones and buy books from neighbourhood shops, to read them, and not to order them online from large platforms.”
This initiative arrives as Barcelona approaches the 10th anniversary in 2026 of its designation as a UNESCO City of Literature. The plan also highlights Saint George’s Day, a unique cultural and civic event, as a prime example of the book’s symbolic and community character in public spaces. The Barcelona Institute of Culture (ICUB) and the Barcelona Libraries Consortium developed the plan in collaboration with the Booksellers’ Guild of Catalonia and the Guild of Second-hand Booksellers of Catalonia.
Enhancing Professional Development
The support plan places central importance on the professional training of booksellers. This ensures the quality, continuity, and viability of bookstore projects. The initiative strengthens professional structures as a foundation for a sustainable sector, providing cultural and social returns for the city. The plan promotes specialised training through an agreement with the Booksellers’ Guild. This includes scholarships for a specialisation diploma offered by the Booksellers’ School at the University of Barcelona. Additionally, it provides specific courses tailored to the sector’s real needs. The professional development line also fosters internationalisation, facilitating travel for Barcelona booksellers to international conferences and fairs. This allows them to explore new business models and best practices, strengthening the city’s bookstore network. Furthermore, the plan includes actions to help bookstores improve their participation in grant applications from the Barcelona City Council and the Barcelona Institute of Culture (ICUB). It offers specific advice to enhance project presentations and ensure more efficient management of public resources.
Digital Modernisation and Adaptation
Another key action line focuses on supporting the digitalisation and technological innovation of bookstores. This area receives a budget of 80,000 euros. This funding will drive projects such as creating online shops, improving management systems, and integrating digital tools. These efforts aim to adapt the sector to new consumer habits and expand its reach. The plan also includes the digitalisation of the Barcelona Literary Map. This initiative, from Barcelona UNESCO City of Literature, compiles information on bookstores, libraries, urban literary spaces, authors, and works connected to the city. Its digital format will make it a valuable resource for citizens, the sector, and educational centres.
Strengthening Community Engagement
The plan commits to expanding the presence of bookstores across the city, particularly in areas with fewer options. It promotes the availability of municipal premises located near libraries and other cultural facilities. This measure aims to foster a more balanced and accessible cultural model. It also reinforces the complementary relationship between bookstores and other local cultural agents. A crucial element of this strategy is promoting meeting and exchange spaces centred on shared reading. The plan includes the first local gathering of reading club facilitators in the city, driven by Barcelona Libraries. This event will enhance training, interrelation, and experience sharing among those who promote reading clubs in bookstores, libraries, educational centres, and other cultural settings. It also highlights the role of reading clubs as tools for social cohesion and community learning. This line also features a city-wide communication campaign, allocated 200,000 euros, specifically supporting bookstores. The campaign aims to underscore their value as local businesses and cultural agents. It seeks to reinforce public recognition of bookstores as spaces that provide cultural value, build community, and perform an essential role in promoting reading and cultural life in neighbourhoods. This framework incorporates books into the upcoming municipal programmes Bonus Cultura and Bonus Consum. It also channels book purchases for school libraries through city bookstores, strengthening the role of the bookstore network within Barcelona’s literary ecosystem. Finally, the plan fosters new synergies between bookstores and literary festivals organised by the Barcelona Institute of Culture (ICUB) and Barcelona Libraries. It also includes measures to boost cultural consumption and local circuits.
Evolving Grants and Structural Support
The support plan for bookstores proposes an evolution of the public aid model. It aims to move towards a more efficient, stable, and sector-specific support policy. This includes creating a dedicated grant call exclusively for bookstores, separate from the general call. This new approach will allow for adjusting the criteria, evaluation standards, and timelines to suit independent and local bookstores. It will also cover structural expenses and areas of activity not always included previously. The objective is to simplify processing, improve grant efficiency, and offer more stable, strategic support for bookstore projects. In line with structural support, the plan also delegates the management of three Barcelona Crea Grants to the Booksellers’ Guild, recognising its role as a sector articulator. This measure will better align the criteria of these grants with the actual needs of the bookstore sector. It will favour projects linked to innovation, reading mediation, cultural programming, digitalisation, and the development of new business models.
Barcelona boasts a broad and diverse bookstore ecosystem, with 134 guild-affiliated bookstores in the city. Most are small to medium-sized, independent, and deeply rooted in their neighbourhoods. These local establishments typically have small teams, with 74% employing between one and five people, and maintain strong ties to their communities. The majority are generalist bookstores, while specialised ones often focus on children’s and young adult literature. These bookstores combine commercial activity with intensive cultural promotion; 87% organise reading promotion activities such as presentations, reading clubs, or author meetings, serving as key spaces for recommendations and community engagement. The sector also shows high tenancy rates, with 92% of establishments operating under rental agreements, and notable territorial stability, as 71% of bookstores have never changed premises. This continuity reinforces their role as local cultural hubs, maintaining sustained relationships with schools, libraries, organisations, and readers. In recent years, the sector has experienced a dual transformation. E-commerce has altered consumer habits, necessitating business model adaptations. Simultaneously, a new generation of independent bookstores has emerged, focusing on curated selections, personalised service, and continuous cultural programming. Despite these changes, bookstores remain the primary channel for book sales and have seen slight growth recently. This plan recognises their value as fundamental cultural infrastructure and crucial spaces for promoting reading, social cohesion, and the city’s cultural life.
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Originally published by Barcelona City Council Press Room. Read original article.
