Booksellers on Video

A Video Archive Project by Michael Ginsberg and Taylor Bowie

Michael Ginsberg's and Taylor Bowie's interviews with rare book dealers are an amazing document of the trade in the dawn of the 21st century.

Dealers and ABAA members like Peter Kraus, Bob Fleck, Ken Lopez, David Brass, Pat and Allen Ahearn, Helen Younger, Jeffrey D. Mancevice, Marty Weinkle, Gordon Hollis, Anne and David Bromer and many others tell us how they became involved in the rare book business. All of them are members of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA), they specialize in every field of the vast variety of rare and extraordinary books from medieval manuscripts to incunabula to modern first editions and modern art.

Click on the names in the left column to start the videos.

“The video interview project will pass 100 interviews after this year's Boston Book Fair. Taylor Bowie (working the Seattle Fair) and I (working Boston, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles) will continue the project until we have 200/250 interviews completed. It has been a labour of love that started when Betsy Trace, a long time dealer from upstate New York, passed away. Her stories of the forties and fifties about booksellers and book selling always enthralled me. When she died, I felt like a part of our trade's history had died as well. I was determined to not let that happen again, hence the video interview project embarked. I am quite proud of what we have done so far, and urge other member countries to begin their own video interview projects. What an archive we could produce.”

Michael Ginsberg

"A wonderful snapshot of the rich history of both the ABAA and the rare book trade" (ABAA Blog)

ILAB is proud to present some more interviews each month. Many thanks to Michael Ginsberg, Taylor Bowie and all the ABAA booksellers for giving us permission to publish them on the ILAB site, and to Tom Congalton for copying the files.