As with most fields of the arts – and in Scotland as elsewhere – festivals have become an increasingly important motor of Scottish literary activity in recent times. The granddaddy of them all, the Edinburgh International Book Festival, now ranks as Europe’s largest public book event, and celebrated its 21st birthday in 2004 with a programme featuring some 650 authors. (Though that should by rights be grandmammy, as all five of its directors to date have been women.) Since its foundation in 1983, it has been joined by numerous other events throughout the country, from Shetland to the Borders, with many other multi-arts festivals also featuring a prominent literary strand. Oral literature, too, has been ably promoted with the steady growth of the Scottish International Storytelling Festival, from an Edinburgh-based to a Scotland-wide event, in a context of increasing support for traditional arts in general. Wigtown, in the far south-west, became Scotland’s first designated “Book Town” in 1998, with an annual festival, year-round promotions and participation in an international network of like-minded municipalities. More recently, in 2004, a successful co-operative campaign by many of the sector's key organisation culminated in Edinburgh's being awarded the title of first UNESCO City of Literature. See also United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).