MELBOURNE RARE BOOK WEEK, JULY 16 - 26, 2015 "Why do we love books? Because like nothing else they teach us, they entertain us, they delight or they challenge us, sometimes all at once. There are not many other things in the world that can do that."
Jörn Harbeck, ANZAAB President
Booklovers will be drawn to Melbourne for a week full of interesting, amazing and outstanding events dedicated exclusively to the wonderful world of rare books and book collecting. Melbourne Rare Book Week commenced in 2012 as a partnership between the Australian and New Zealand Association of Antiquarian Booksellers (ANZAAB), the University of Melbourne and eight other literary institutions. In 2014, over 40 free events were held at libraries, literary and historical societies and bookshops throughout Melbourne, attracting local, national and international visitors. Now in its fourth year, Melbourne Rare Book Week is well established in the City of Melbourne's event calendar. It is a major attraction for book collectors, librarians and all who have a love of words, print on paper and literary heritage.
Come, see, discover and purchase rare and unusual books, maps and prints, as well as manuscripts, photographs and other historical paper-based items offered by Australian and international antiquarian booksellers at Wilson Hall, University of Melbourne, from 24 to 26 July 2015.
THEFT, RETRIEVAL, SALE AND RESTITUTION OF RARE BOOKS, MAPS AND MANUSCRIPTS
ILAB PRESIDENT NORBERT DONHOFER SPOKE AT THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BOOK THEFTS HELD AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY IN LONDON.
Do we need more drastic measures to prevent the theft of books, maps, manuscripts and other art on paper? On 26 June 2015 internationally renowned experts - librarians, archivists, lawyers, auctioneers and rare book dealers - discussed one of the global problems of the antiquarian book trade in the 21st century: the theft of books, manuscripts and prints from public collections such as, in recent years, the Girolamini Library in Naples, the National Library of Sweden, the Danish Royal Library in Copenhagen and, right now, from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris.
ILAB President Norbert Donhofer was invited to speak at the conference in London, which will be followed up by another international meeting in New York in 2016.
ILAB's participation in UNESCO's 2015 World Book and Copyright Day was a great success. Hundreds, if not thousands of booksellers and members of the public were involved. On 32 ILAB Pop Up Fairs in 12 countries from Australia to Asia, South Africa, Europe and the United States ILAB affiliates brought books to the people at the most unexpected places: a barge on a canal in Amsterdam, a woolshed in the Australian bush, a library in an underprivileged section of Antwerp, an elegant historic business man's club in Munich, a bookshop in central Tokyo, the new Museum of Literature in Vienna, a brew pub in Portland Oregon, a whole street in Groningen ... there was even a travelling pop up fair in England with "Celeste the Rare Book Campervan" visiting primary schools on the road from Salisbury to Oxford. And the booksellers did much more on UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day 2015:
We are very proud to report that ILAB affiliates across the world raised over 10,000 Euros for UNESCO's South Sudan literacy project. Thank you very much!
These days, it seems as though you could walk into your local coffee shop, shout out names like Matisse, Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh, Pollock, Klimt, Rembrandt, Renoir, Degas, Munch, Chagall, Kahlo, Vermeer, or Dali and every single person there would know what these 14 people had in common. They are painters! They have different styles, are from different cultures, different countries, different eras and have different backgrounds, yet we know them all, despite - probably - never having taken an art history class in our lives.
Now for a test! What do the names Qi Baishi and Zhang Dagian have in common?
The artist's book is a thriving art form in Australia. While books most typically convey ideas through their text, artists' books express meaning through a combination of illustrations, typography, and the form of the book itself. In Corrugations, Australian artist Katie Clemson worked in collaboration with the poet Anne Bell to capture the essence of the land where she grew up and created a tribute to a material that has become a characteristic part of Australia's architectural landscape: corrugated iron.
"I returned to Scotland Yard to report ..." - an opening to a sentence which anywhere in the English-speaking world can only mean one thing - that we are about to enter the realm of that peculiarly English, much-loved, and perennially popular school of detective fiction based on the exploits of the Detective Branch of the Metropolitan Police, originally established in 1842 with a complement of just two inspectors, six sergeants and a number of constables. It became Criminal Investigation Department in 1878. This particular sentence in fact comes from a story published in Chambers' Edinburgh Journal in August 1849 as the second in an irregular series which ran between 1849 and 1852 under the general title of Recollections of a Police Officer. And they are the very first detective stories in English literature."
"Why do we love books? Because like nothing else they teach us, they entertain us, they delight or they challenge us, sometimes all at once. There are not many other things in the world that can do that."
ILAB PRESIDENT NORBERT DONHOFER SPOKE AT THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BOOK THEFTS HELD AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY IN LONDON.
ILAB's participation in UNESCO's 2015 World Book and Copyright Day was a great success. Hundreds, if not thousands of booksellers and members of the public were involved. On 32 ILAB Pop Up Fairs in 12 countries from Australia to Asia, South Africa, Europe and the United States ILAB affiliates brought books to the people at the most unexpected places: a barge on a canal in Amsterdam, a woolshed in the Australian bush, a library in an underprivileged section of Antwerp, an elegant historic business man's club in Munich, a bookshop in central Tokyo, the new Museum of Literature in Vienna, a brew pub in Portland Oregon, a whole street in Groningen ... there was even a travelling pop up fair in England with "Celeste the Rare Book Campervan" visiting primary schools on the road from Salisbury to Oxford. And the booksellers did much more on UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day 2015: 
These days, it seems as though you could walk into your local coffee shop, shout out names like Matisse, Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh, Pollock, Klimt, Rembrandt, Renoir, Degas, Munch, Chagall, Kahlo, Vermeer, or Dali and every single person there would know what these 14 people had in common. They are painters! They have different styles, are from different cultures, different countries, different eras and have different backgrounds, yet we know them all, despite - probably - never having taken an art history class in our lives.
The artist's book is a thriving art form in Australia. While books most typically convey ideas through their text, artists' books express meaning through a combination of illustrations, typography, and the form of the book itself. In Corrugations, Australian artist Katie Clemson worked in collaboration with the poet Anne Bell to capture the essence of the land where she grew up and created a tribute to a material that has become a characteristic part of Australia's architectural landscape: corrugated iron.
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