The 2019 Annual General Meeting of the International ISBN Agency was recently held in Santiago, Chile. The meeting took place on Monday 30 September and Tuesday 1 October, and was held in Santiago thanks to the kind offer of the Cámara Chilena del Libro. The Cámara (Book Chamber) runs the ISBN agency in Chile and we were very grateful to our colleagues there for their hard work and support in organising the meeting. As usual, delegates from all national and regional ISBN agencies were invited to partiicpate.

The AGM took place at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in the centre of Santiago. Among many important points for discussion there were updates regarding publishing trends in Chile, the latest news from CERLALC and of course the formal part of the annual meeting for the International ISBN Agency. We were pleased to also hold a discussion and workshop session at which attendees were invited to discuss any issues affecting ISBN in their countries.

We were delighted to welcome 59 delegates from 36 different organisations, most of which were ISBN agencies across the world. We were particularly pleased that this year there was strong representation from the Ibero-American agencies. Indeed, a specific Ibero-American session was also held in Santiago later in the same week. We give our thanks to all attendees of the meetings, whose effort in travelling to Chile and input during the event contributed to a lively and informative meeting.

And in addition to these meetings, the International ISBN Agency was able once again to collaborate with our colleagues at the International ISMN Agency. Their AGM was held in Santiago on 2 October and delegates involved in both ISBN and ISMN were able to take advantage of the two meetings being held in conjunction with one another.