The 17th Shanghai Book Fair will expand its exhibition space and give a boost to its online presence to help ensure public health and safety.

The city's annual reading celebration and showcase for new publications from China and abroad will take place at the Shanghai Exhibition Center from Aug 12 to 18, the municipality announced on Thursday.

"We will build more tents to expand the exhibition space from the usual 23,000 square meters to an unprecedented 26,000," according to Xu Jiong, head of the municipal administration of press and publication. "This will help to prevent crowds from gathering and provide a safer and more comfortable environment for visitors."

This year, the COVID-19 pandemic has created great challenges for the fair, the organizer said, but "we will learn from the operations and feedback from other large public events in the city, such as the upcoming Shanghai International Film Festival (July 25-Aug 2) and China Joy (July 31-Aug 3), an exhibition of digital entertainment industry, to implement effective measures to ensure a safe book fair now that the containment of COVID-19 has become a regular part of daily life."

Visitors will have to make reservations with their valid ID, present their health QR code and have their temperatures taken upon entering the fair. Moreover, the fair will monitor the number of visitors in the exhibition space and prevent more people from entering if the number reaches a peak level.

The fair will open from 9 am to 9 pm every day, with a certain period allocated for sterilization and cleanup, Xu said.

"I hope people will understand that the inconvenience is all for the cause of public safety," he said. "We ask publishing houses to showcase at the fair as many new titles as possible, but with not so many copies for each title. This will leave maximum space to visitors, enable them to find new books at the fair, and buy online promptly and conveniently."

Aside from the main exhibition venue at Shanghai Exhibition Center, the fair will also host a showcase of new books and reading events at 150 other locations around the city. In addition, the fair will make more efforts than ever to enrich online service and broadcast more events through online livestreaming on popular web platforms such as Bilibili and Little Red Book.

"We hope to introduce the fun of books to as many new readers as possible, and make the fair a festival for the wide public, instead of a secret shared by small groups of dedicated book lovers," Xu said.

For the convenience of epidemiological tracking, all tickets must be booked online or purchased on site with a valid ID, he added.