Every year the International ISBN Agency organises an Annual General Meeting, at which delegates from all national and regional ISBN agencies are invited to participate. In 2018, this meeting was held at the Palace Hotel in Sliema, Malta on Monday 24 and Tuesday 25 September.

First and foremost, we would like to give our sincere thanks to the National Book Council of Malta, which helped to host the meeting and whose staff worked very hard to ensure that the meeting was a successful, well-attended and informative event. Our particular thanks go to Mark Camilleri and Simona Cassano.

The event was attended by a total of 72 delegates, representing 49 different ISBN agencies or related organisations. Our thanks go to each of these 72 delegates for taking the time and the effort to come to the meeting and contribute to its success.

The meeting covered many important issues related to the ISBN identifier and to the publishing industry more generally - such as the recent revision of the ISBN standard, reports from related identifiers (including, for the first time, the International Standard Link Identifier (ISLI)) and the publishing situation in Malta itself. There was also a workshop to explore the situation regarding the emergence of new book-like products and new publishing business models.

As always, our thanks also go to colleagues at the International ISMN Agency. Our organisations' meetings were once again held in cooperation with one another, an arrangement which we feel serves both communities very well indeed.