The First Annual Designers & Books Fair, in Manhattan SPREADING THE WORD Steven Kroeter at the Fashion Institute of Technology, the site of the fair. Last year, Steven Kroeter started Designers & Books, a Web site that asks design industry notables to share the titles that have inspired them. "On the one hand you can go to TED and spend four days and whatever that costs," Mr. Kroeter said. Or you can "get a book list from people you really respect and read." The site now offers 140 lists from the likes of Maira Kalman, Shigeru Ban and Christian Lacroix - about 1,500 books altogether. Mr. Kroeter, 60, who lives in New York, has a reputation for making ideas tangible. He was instrumental in creating the Frank Lloyd Wright product line, which includes things like dining tables and decorative picture frames, and he consults with Robert A. M. Stern on the architect's product design and licensing program. So it's natural that he's taking his digital forum offline. The first Designers & Books Fair will take place this weekend at the Fashion Institute of Technology. The fair opens Friday evening with Michael Bierut, Irma Boom, Massimo Vignelli, Lorraine Wild and Barry Bergdoll discoursing on the future of the design book. Saturday and Sunday will be filled with designers in conversation - like Tod Williams and Billie Tsien with Paul Goldberger - as well as book signings and a trade floor with 35 United States and European publishers selling new and rare books. Mr. Kroeter enlightened a reporter about it all. How did Designers & Books develop into a fair? There are so many events in the design world and so many books bought and sold on design. There's an art book fair, but no design book fair. So we started talking to publishers about whether it was a good idea, and they said, "Yeah, why didn't someone think of this before?" It seemed if we could provide a venue for a celebration of design and books, people would show up. What would you like to achieve with the show? I hope this is going to be a weekend-long celebration for design, designers, books, ideas and the people that love all that stuff. I never thought it would evolve to 17 programs with people coming in from China, Amsterdam and Los Angeles. Now I'm starting to think, when was the last time that this many notable people showed up at an event and they are all accessible? We're encouraging them, after they speak, to go into the exhibition hall and sign a book, if they have a book to sign, or just meet people and talk to them. It's interesting that you drew such a response in this digitally focused age. We'll have a panel of publishers and I hope they talk about that or get asked about that. I think designers like books. Our definition of a book is certainly paper, but also pixels. They like to walk to the shelf and pull it off and flip through it, but at the same time they also like technology. There's an interesting schizophrenic thing going on that we'll have to sort through. The area of design publishing is interesting - instead of either-or, it is both-and. Your program does seem to respect the special interests of book industry dinosaurs, though. We're going to have the Antiquarian Annex for out-of-print and rare book sellers - it's like a museum but you can buy it. And because we believe in the idea of enlightening and entertaining, we've invited book artisans to do demos in calligraphy, letterpress printing and book binding. They're from the Center for Book Arts and the Society of Scribes. Society of Scribes? That sounds like there should be capes involved. Well, it is the weekend before Halloween. Designers & Books Fair, Oct. 26 to 28, 227 West 27th Street (Seventh Avenue). Tickets start at $10; information: designersandbooksfair.com.