1888: The How, The Why

Mitchell Kaplan is best known for the creation of the Miami Book Fair International, the largest community book festival in the United States and a model for book fairs across the country.Kaplan began his working career as a high school English teacher. Two years after opening an independent bookstore, Books & Books, Kaplan, along with the Dade County Library and other independent bookstore owners, was asked by the president of the downtown Wolfson campus of the Miami-Dade College, Eduardo J. Padrón, to help put on a book fair, originally called “Books by the Bay.”In addition to overseeing five bookstores, including one located in Grand Cayman, Kaplan serves as the Chair of the Miami Book Fair Board of Directors and on the steering committee of the Florida Center for the Literary Arts, Miami-Dade College’s literary center. He has served as President of the American Booksellers Association, and on the Board of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.Without These Libraries is a community-fo