Position Announcement: Rare Book Cataloger, Burnside Rare Books Burnside Rare Books is seeking a full-time rare book cataloger to join our small but growing team. Starting salary is in the range of $45,000-$75,000 commensurate with experience. All work is to be done in person at our offices in Portland, Oregon. Primary duties are cataloging and researching new inventory, maintaining inventory control, photographing books, working with customers to sell books, shipping orders, and basic office duties. This position may require travel to book fairs or to meet with clients, and other duties may be assigned. Qualified candidates will possess either an academic background in rare book cataloging, or practical experience cataloging for a rare book firm or auction house. This position requires attention to detail, excellent writing and verbal communication skills, strong research abilities, a demonstrated knowledge of book history and the care and preservation of rare books, a professional and client-oriented demeanor, and the ability to occasionally lift boxes of material up to 50 lbs. Please email cover letter and resume to info@burnsiderarebooks.com. No phone calls or visits please. [more Job Opening: Rare Book Cataloger at Burnside Rare Books]
The Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair (BIABF) has announced special events and programs at this year's fair; kicking off with an Opening Night celebration on Friday, November 8, from 4-8pm; and featuring in-person talks all weekend. With more than 100 rare book dealers from the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Italy, Netherlands, Serbia, the UK, and 19 U.S. states, an alluring treasure trove awaits seasoned bibliophiles and first-time attendees at the Fair. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8 4-8pm | Opening Night Get a first look at items for sale at this festive preview—an opportunity to browse the collections of U.S. and international dealers and to mingle with other bibliophiles, collectors, museum curators, and special collections librarians. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at the event or online... Buy tickets here... SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9 12:00 pm | Boston Book Fair Tour Join Bibliographical Society of America (BSA) Executive Director Erin McGuirl for a walk-through of the fair, meeting BSA-member booksellers. This is your opportunity to learn about the book trade, best practices, and to get to know some of your fellow travelers and members of the book trade. Newcomers welcome, limited to 10 participants. Registration required... 1:00 pm | The Ticknor Society Collectors' Roundtable: Off the Beaten Track Many, if not most, collectors happily search among the mountain peaks, focusing on the high points in their chosen area. But some, for various reasons, venture off the we... [more Boston Book Fair Special Events]
As the current president of the ABAA, I have been attending the biannual Congress of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB), the umbrella organization that brings together national Associations from around the world. Our hosts in Amsterdam have outdone themselves! The main Congress was preceded by meetings to discuss official ILAB business. The protection of cultural property, while pursued for the noblest of reasons, can lead to incredible bureaucratic burdens and even become counterproductive if people familiar with the actual function of the book trade aren't involved in shaping policy. Fortunately, ILAB's Executive Secretary Angelika Elstner has been elected to the European Union's Art Market Expert Group to provide precisely this kind of input. Among other contributions, ILAB has shown that Interpol's figures for stolen library materials were wildly exaggerated. For example, it claimed that 472,933 pieces of “Library material” had been seized in the past year, which, if true, would mean that the book trade was awash in literal mountains of stolen goods. ILAB was able to show that almost the entire figure derived from a single 500-year-old family archive in Italy that was confiscated by the state as part of a dispute over legal ownership. In point of fact, ILAB and its affiliates are always eager to protect the integrity of institutional collections, and now ILAB has a voice in the European Union to help shape policies that sustain this goal withou... [more ILAB Congress in Amsterdam: Business and Pleasure]
Edit: The recording of this event is now available on our YouTube channel: The Brown Bag Lunch Series, presented by the ABAA Gender Equity Initiative, invites you to join on Zoom on October 22nd, 2024, at 2 PM ET for a Brown Bag Lunch Series with Jordan Ross, the first prize winner of the David Ruggles Prize. Ross will be presenting his collection of "Black Collegiate Textbooks and Histories" along with the prize administrator, Patrick Olson of Patrick Olson Rare Books. October 22nd @ 2 PM ET Collecting Black Collegiate Textbooks and Histories Register here... Jordan Ross Ross has been collecting for ten years, and his decade-long effort to build a "Black Collegiate Textbooks and Histories" collection is paying off. Ross provides not only a snapshot of African American history textbooks in use during the late-19th and early-20th centuries, but also the increasingly scarce histories of the HBCUs that taught with those same textbooks. It started in Fall 2014 with a visit to the campus bookstore at Morehouse College, where he had just started his first year. He asked staff for a history of the college, only to learn that the most recent one was some fifty years out of print. He walked up the street to Spelman College, asked for the same thing, and learned that its history, too, was out of print. Now numbering more than 200 books, Ross' distinctive engagement with a print culture specific to HBCUs aims to preserve these vanishing histories. While many of the judges' decisions are... [more October Brown Bag]
The Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair (BIABF) celebrates its 46th year at the Hynes Convention Center in Downtown Boston, November 8-10, 2024. This three-day event welcomes the top international dealers offering the most sought-after collections of fine and rare books, maps, illustrations, and ephemera on the global market. In celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA), a series of special events and programs will be presented in Boston. For more information, visit www.abaa.org/bostonbookfair... More than 100 rare book dealers from Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Italy, Netherlands, Serbia, the UK, and 19 U.S. states will exhibit an alluring treasure trove for seasoned bibliophiles and first-time attendees. Prices range from the millions to the eminently affordable. Whether immaculately preserved or intriguingly weathered, each item tells its own story. Booksellers hold a seemingly bottomless wealth of knowledge, both artistically and historically, about each item in their collections. A complete list of exhibitors can be found here... “We are thrilled to be capping off a year-long celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the ABAA in Boston,” says Julie Roper, CEO of Capricorn Event Management, LLC, who has managed the Boston Book Fair since 2015. “This milestone year marks a significant evolution of the organization, characterized by a shift in the diversity of its membership and the material it promotes. N... [more Boston Book Fair 2024]
The CABS-Minnesota Antiquarian Book Seminar celebrated its 48th year this July on the campus of St. Olaf College. The class of over 50 convened for an intensive week of hands-on instruction and informal conversations about the book trade, including impromptu book shops in the dorms and a lecture from specialty dealer Alexander Akin of Bolerium Books. 22 of the students were supported by scholarships, including from the ABAA Woodburn Fund. Find out more at www.bookseminars.com. [more 2024 CABS-Minnesota Antiquarian Book Seminar]
The Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA) is thrilled to announce a Virtual Book Fair on September 25-27, 2024 at abaa.org/vbf, as part of the celebrations marking its 75th anniversary. This special online event will bring together booksellers, collectors, and enthusiasts worldwide, offering an opportunity to explore and purchase rare and antiquarian books, manuscripts, ephemera, and more, all from the comfort of home. The Virtual Book Fair will feature an array of offerings from ABAA members, showcasing the diversity and richness of materials that define the antiquarian book trade. Participants will have the chance to browse exclusive collections, engage with sellers in real time to celebrate the ABAA's remarkable legacy and its contributions to the world of book collecting. View members exhibiting at the ABAA 75th Anniversary Virtual Book Fair... “We are excited to offer this Virtual Book Fair to connect with a global audience and celebrate our 75th anniversary,” says Susan Benne, Executive Director of the ABAA. “This event embodies our commitment to expanding access to the rare book world and fostering relationships among collectors, sellers, and institutions.” This Virtual Book Fair is one of many events commemorating the ABAA's 75 years of promoting ethical standards, professionalism, and education within the rare book trade. The ABAA has grown from its founding in 1949 to include over 400 members, each dedicated to preserving and promoting the r... [more ABAA 75th Anniversary Virtual Book Fair]
Over the past half century, Second Story Books has provided the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area access to an unlimited and rich reading experience. From their original small second floor location on Connecticut Avenue, Second Story Books, an ABAA/ILAB member since 1976, has evolved as an internationally respected bookseller dealing in antiquarian and out-of-print books, art, ephemera and general used books with two locations. In this interview, owner and founder Allan Stypeck discusses his long career in bookselling and appraising and his parallel career in television and documentary making. On the present: One of the traditional advantages of having a walk-in bookstore in Washington D.C. was the customer base, consisting of local residents, tourists, and the large federal government bureaucracy, which includes the collateral organizations and law firms associated with the government (aka the K Street Corridor). The average Washington-area family demographic is above average with two-income, college-educated households and was thought to be recession proof. With the advent of the Covid outbreak, that stability was greatly challenged. Like the rest of the country, we were forced to shut down operations for over a year and then reopen with very restrictive social distancing regulations. Compounding these issues was the reality that the majority of government workers primarily began working remotely and tourism became almost non-existent. Local Metro ridership (essentia... [more Allan Stypeck: 50 Years of Bookselling]
Jeff Weber is proprietor of Jeff Weber Rare Books, Montreux and Neuchâtel, Switzerland. He is a member of ILAB, ABAA and VEBBUKU/SLACES (Switzerland). What, by its nature, would be rarer than an original Gutenberg Bible? The invoice that recorded the sale of the first books printed with moveable type! The receipt! Yes, those most-often tossed slips of paper, recording a seemingly trivial event, those receipts are golden to the researcher today if receipts would be appreciated. The receipt will never be as valuable as the item itself, but the tossed data is where the story of how a book (or another item) was distributed, who was involved, and when. When that receipt is tossed, its recorded history is lost, perhaps never to be recognized again. The purpose of writing about receipts is to make the point that there is scholarly value in saved receipts, particularly when they unlock the mysterious ties between buyer and seller. I will refer to a number of personal projects that have benefitted from saved receipts or would have benefitted more had those receipts been kept. By some pertinent examples, I hope that the reader will consider the value of using receipts in their research. This, by my purpose, is to encourage institutions and collectors as well as those who inherit personal papers, to keep notes, receipts, email archives, manuscripts, all kinds of primary research data that can be used in the future to understand more by using those receipts and other materials, to advan... [more Book Receipts: Ephemera with Essential Intellectual Value]
The National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest awards ceremony was held at the Library of Congress on September 13, 2024. The Contest was established in 2005 by Fine Books & Collections Magazine to recognize outstanding book collecting efforts by college and university students--the program aims to encourage young collectors to become accomplished bibliophiles. ABAA Member and collector Rebecca Romney was the featured speaker and made the winners and guests feel welcome. The Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA), the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies (FABS), and the Center for the Book and the Rare Books and Special Collections Division (the Library of Congress) jointly assumed leadership of the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest in 2010. The Grolier Club, a noted book collectors organization, joined us shortly afterward. Incidentally, each winner has a year-long membership at the Grolier Club in New York City. We thank this year's judges who are part of these partner organizations: Shannon Struble, Jennifer Larson, and Sharon Gee; Sheryl Jaeger, Declan Kiely, Olivia Loksing Moy, and Nancy Boehm who are each collectors and bibliophiles in their own right. Incidentally, each winner has a year-long membership at the Grolier Club in New York City. We also thank Susan Jaffe Tane, the noted collector and philanthropist, for nurturing the next generation of collectors. Prizes are awarded to both the winning students and the libraries of the ... [more Meet the 2024 NCBCC Winners]