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The Calcutta Book Fair was held in 1976 for the first time. Since then, this mega event takes place every year in the last week of January. Its organizer is the 'Publishers & Book Sellers Guild'. It has an international flavour as participants come from all over the globe.

Such a fair is befitting in this metropolis, which glows with a rich cultural heritage. It has always been regarded with high esteem for its academic tradition and as a paradise for the connoisseurs of books. The annual book fair has intensified this obsession of Calcuttans and given birth to a 'book fair culture' in the entire state. The fair is multi-faceted and yields positive results. The visitors in the fair get the opportunity to learn and form a notion about the society, culture, economy and heritage of diverse nations and even different states of our own country, of whom, we are otherwise so ignorant and indifferent.

This enormous fair is generally held on a cover area of 200,000 sq. ft. En masse, it spreads over a total area of 800,000 sq. ft. It consists of 535 book stalls of various sizes, a stand pavilion with 42 stands for accommodating as many small publishers and 172 little magazines offering a unique table display. One of the salient features of the fair is the huge ocean of people who come from all corners of the city and even from outside. The authorities try earnestly for an immaculate management of such a chaotic situation and effectively manoeuvre the mob-movement through out the fairground. They are all the more cautious in facilitating the movement of the crowd between the Territorial Army Ground and the smaller ground on Jawaharlal Nehru Road. Car-parking facilities are also available near the different gates.

In the center of the fairground is the 'Foreign Complex', which is actually a cluster of all the foreign participants. It definitely adds a new dimension to the book-fair.

Newspapers and Periodicals, intent to publicize their entire range and features, find a suitable opening in Calcutta Book-Fair. Government and autonomous institutions publishing specialist titles, rarely appear in the commercial channels. The focal theme every year is on a particular country which is alloted a special pavilion every year. The focussed country has a special day dedicated to it. Scintillating music of the respective country is played on the stereo, which soothes the atmosphere of the fair ground.

As told earlier, the Guild adopts drastic measures to facilitate the crowd movement in the fairground as well as the transport of the visitors who flock here. One of the unique provisions is to sell tickets from several places scilicet, the Metro Railway stations, the Guild office, different bookstores and ticket counters at the Howrah and Sealdah stations. During the 'Fair' days, the Metro-Rail authorities offer special train-service to facilitate the communication of the visitors in the Book-Fair.

On 3rd February, the Awards Ceremony is held by the Guild as the last formal programme to conclude this gala event. Before the commencement of the ceremony, two-minute silence is observed all over the fair-ground to commemorate Jiten Seal, a connoisseur of books, who embraced a tragic death in the devastating inferno which engulfed the Fair in 1997. A special award is given to the 'Theme Pavilion'. Other awards are given for the best designed pavilions and stalls at the fair. A special award is given for outstanding contribution in publishing. Again, the 'West Bengal Master Printers' Association Award' is conferred on the best printed books from Calcutta.