CABS 2018 - The Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar
The Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar, better known as CABS in the rare book world, will take place this week. What is CABS all about? Why should an aspiring bookseller attend seminars like CABS in the United States or YABS (the York Antiquarian Book Seminar) in England?
Originally called the Antiquarian Book Market Seminar, the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar launched in 1978 thanks to a collaboration between Dean Margaret Goggin of the Graduate School of Librarianship and Information at the University of Denver and Jacob Chernofsky, editor and publisher of AB Bookman’s Weekly. In the ensuing 35 years, hundreds of booksellers, librarians, and collectors have attended this bibliophilic seminar and are proud to call themselves alumni of this intense week-long event. If you’re thinking of attending….DO! You won’t be disappointed. Numerous scholarships are available.
The 2018 programme includes lectures on topics such as:
- Business Basics for Booksellers
- The Book as Physical Object
- Why Bibliography Matters
- Research Strategies
- Marketing Your Book Business
- A Visual History of Collectors & the Book Trade
- How to Sell A Book
- Working with Libraries & Collectors
- How to Build & Use A Reference Library
- Cataloguing: Beyond the Basics
- Auctions & Consignments
- Fakes & Forgeries
- Book Fairs & Trade Etiquette
Guest Speakers in 2018 are Sophie Schneideman, rare bookseller from the UK, specializing in Private Press and illustrated books and Russell Maret, type designer and private press printer working in New York.
Faculty Members 2018
Lorne Bair grew up in Spain, South America, and on a commune in West Virginia before leaving home at sixteen for a brief stint in the U.S. Coast Guard, followed by degrees in Biology, English Literature and Creative Writing at Virginia Tech and the University of Maryland. He began his bookselling career in the mid-1990s in Oregon, scouting for Powell's Books in Portland and answering queries in the old Bookman's Weekly. He ran an open shop in Winchester, Virginia, from 1996 until 2002, when he abandoned general bookselling to pursue his current specialty in American Radical History and Social Movements. He is currently Southeast Representative to the Board of Governors of the ABAA, and lives in Winchester with his wife, a dog, and two cats.
Lisa Baskin is a political activist, collector, antiques dealer, book dealer and antiquarian. Brooklyn born, educated in New York City public schools, she went off to attend Cornell before moving to Western Massachusetts. She is a former editor of the Massachusetts Review, historian & independent curator (most recently of the Phillis Wheatley 200th Anniversary exhibit; the inaugural exhibition at the Elizabeth Cady Stanton House, Seneca Falls Women’s Rights National Historic Park and The Gehenna Press: Fifty Years 1942-1992.) She jokes that she collected in the cradle, and the product of her efforts, a near comprehensive collection documenting the political & social history of working women from the fifteenth century to the Spanish Civil War, is now part of the David M. Rubenstein Library at Duke University.
Terry Belanger established the Book Arts Press (BAP) at Columbia University in 1971 as a bibliographical laboratory supporting a program for the training of rare book and special collections librarians and antiquarian booksellers. In 1983, he founded Rare Book School (RBS), a series of courses for students of the history of the book and related subjects. He moved both the BAP and RBS to the University of Virginia in 1992, where he retired as University Professor and Honorary Curator of Special Collections in 2009. Belanger is a 2005 MacArthur Fellow.
Brian Cassidy has been involved in the book business in one form or another since 1994. A member of ABAA and IOBA, as well as a Seminar alumnus, Brian's specialties include modern and contemporary literature; The Beats; poetry; popular culture; esoterica; artists' books; the avant-garde in all its various guises (music to film, art to dance); small journals and magazines (especially those associated with the Mimeo Revolution); letters, manuscripts, and archives; as well as vernacular, folk and outsider books.
Maria Lin runs the IT side of the seminar, supporting the A/V needs of the faculty and managing the seminar listserv and website. She was a 2012 attendee at CABS, and after graduating from the University of Denver's library science program joined Rulon-Miller Books as a full time employee. She was the recipient of the James Davis Scholarship at the Rare Book School in 2014.
Kathy Lindeman handles registration, communication with interested parties, printing and notebook design, behind the scenes organization and financial accounting for the Antiquarian Book Seminar. Making everything run smoothly is the main priority and challenge! Kathy is also Coordinator for the Colorado College Faculty Club; former Staff Assistant for the CC Economics and Business Department, and Pikes Peak Regional Coordinator for the National History Day Competition. Kathy has worked in University Libraries at Cornell and CU Boulder and lives with her husband Ted, a Chemistry Professor at Colorado College in Colorado Springs.
Heather O’Donnell worked a series of bookish jobs through college, and got her start in rare books as a curatorial assistant at the Beinecke Library in the mid-1990s. After three years in the Princeton Society of Fellows, she joined the trade as a bookseller with Bauman Rare Books. In 2011, Heather launched Honey & Wax Booksellers in Brooklyn, specializing in literary classics and curiosities. She is a graduate of the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar and Rare Book School, a member of the Grolier Club, and the founder of the annual Brooklyn Holiday Book Fair. Honey & Wax is a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA) and the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB).
Katherine Reagan is Ernest Stern ‘56 Curator of Rare Books & Manuscripts and Assistant Director for Collections, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University, where she has worked since 1997. A Bay Area native, her undergraduate degree is from the University of California at Berkeley and her Master’s degree is from Columbia University, where she was a member of the last graduating class of the Rare Book Program at Columbia’s School of Library Service. Prior to working at Cornell, she worked as a reference librarian at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. She serves on the faculty of Rare Book School, and was Chair of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of ACRL (a division of the American Library Association) in 2005–06.
Robert Rulon-Miller, Jr., began selling books in his family rare book business in Rhode Island while a teenager. In 1982, he started Rulon-Miller Books in Saint Paul, MN. He served as ABAA President from 1994-1996 and has chaired many ABAA committees. Rob began teaching at the seminar in 2003 after being one of the specialty dealers in 2002, and served as Director in 2004-09. He resumed his directorship in 2013.
Garrett Scott got his first job working with rare books as a student assistant at Stanford University Special Collections in 1990. In 1991 he left college and took a job with John Crichton at the Brick Row Book Shop in San Francisco. Garrett moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1998 and there went into business as Garrett Scott, Bookseller. He appeared as the specialty dealer at CABS in 2015 and joined the CABS faculty in 2016.
Garrett specializes in the printed and written residue of the older, weirder America -- 19th and early 20th century pamphlet material, books and ephemera dealing with eccentric authors and odd subjects, American entertainments, popular medicine, unpopular literature, obscure imprints and even more obscure religious movements. Garrett has recently served on the Board of Governors of the ABAA. While on the Board he served four years as the chair of the Security Committee, and in 2018 has returned to serve on the Security Committee.
For all information and to get in touch with the organisers, please visit the website: www.bookseminars.com
Scholarships are given each year from various rare book trade-related institutions.
FURTHER READING:
CABS – or seeing the book trade with clarity
CABS - The Boot Camp for Book Dealers