The highlight of this year's Guadalajara International Book Fair, considered by many to be the best book fair in the Spanish-language world, had to be the return of Fred Perkins, in a new role as president of the Latin-American division of the newly formed Pearson Education group.

For more than two decades, Perkins developed the Latin-American market for McGraw-Hill, making it the most successful U.S. publisher in the region. After ending his career with McGraw-Hill 18 months ago, and following a successful battle with throat cancer, Perkins now finds himself running the operations of his former competitors: Prentice Hall and Addison Wesley Longman.

He is also in charge of the professional lines formerly of S&S, including computer, business and sci-tech publishing, which he feels rounds out the educational lines "beautifully."

A radiant Perkins told PW in Guadalajara that he didn't expect to have to make major changes in the new organization, since the AWL and S&S lines complement each other well. Among the managers already in place in the Pearson Education group are some of Perkins's former McGraw-Hill co-workers. Included among them is the new COO of Latin-American operations, Guillermo Hernandez, until recently president of Prentice Hall Hispanoamericana in Mexico City, who will set up headquarters in Miami shortly. Perkins will remain at White Plains, N.Y., when he is not traveling.

Once again, this year's book fair combined the cultural and literary aspects of the book industry with the necessities of doing business. The mix of Guadalajara's perfect springlike climate and open-air fairgrounds, the friendly and efficient organizers, the best Latino authors, live music and hundreds of well-managed schoolchildren help make this event's book business more attractive than usual.

The Feria International del Libro (FIL) is most people's favorite trade book event, vying perhaps with Bologna. And though the Mexican publishers, all based in Mexico City, grumble about the costs of moving staff and stock to Guadalajara for more than a week each year, they have no choice.

Not a major Spanish house is absent from Guadalajara. With 937 publishers present, 648 from 35 countries other than Mexico, the focus is on all of the Spanish-speaking world. The FIL statistics show a total professional participation of 9750 (an increase of about 10% from last year), 1466 buyers among them (up 40%).

The American Library Association and FIL pay the way of nearly 200 librarians from the U.S. each year to buy Spanish-language books. U.S. distributors, such as Linda Goodman of Bilingual Publications in New York, help these buyers, often first-timers to Mexico, providing lists of recommended publishers to visit among the countries represented.

"There are so many books here," said Goodman, "you can't possibly see them all in three days. So this year we handed out slips that the librarian places in each book he or she wants. The slip asks the publishers to reserve so many copies for this library. Then my assistant g s around collecting the books and shipping them back to the U.S."

The talents and energy of the remarkable duo, Maricarmen Canales and Margarita Sierra, who launched the event 12 years ago, are funneled through the educational and cultural philosophy of the University of Guadalajara and the Culture and Arts Council of Mexico. As co-organizers, they guarantee that FIL is more than just a trade event, though three of the nine days are for professionals only.

This year's "country of honor" was Puerto Rico, a major Spanish-language book market in its own right. Close to 1000 Puerto Ricans attended. The FIL representative for the Caribbean region, José Manuel Pérez, was justly proud of the huge variety of books displayed and the contributions of Puerto Rico to the event.

Introduced at Guadalajara was LEER, the first free online searchable database of books, magazines, videos and CD-ROMs in Spanish. Developed by NISC Puerto Rico, LEER uses the Libros en Venta database as a foundation, adding ordering information from a variety of distributors and booksellers throughout the Spanish-speaking world. Anyone who wants to participate is welcome. So far, there are 400,000 entries, with a Cuban database coming soon. (The site is at www.leer.nisc.com.)

Craig Falk, of U.S. PubRep in Rockville, Md., has represented a number of major U.S. university presses in Latin America for four years and never misses Guadalajara. He told PW that this year netted more business than last. "It is hard for me to judge the reaction to the perturbations in the economy, here," he noted. "In some cases, buyers are more cautious, but others are placing big orders."

While concern continues about financial stability all over South America, the need for books and the potential growth in these markets is obvious. Next year's event will feature Chile as the country of honor, and the professional days will run November 29-December 1.