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It is with great sadness that both the Dutch Association of Antiquarian Booksellers (NVvA) and ILAB have to report the death of Bob de Graaf (1927-2011). He served the NVvA as Secretary (1963-1969) and as its President (1971-1974). In 1973 he joined the ILAB Committee, and accepted both the position as editor of ILAB's Newsletter and as Secretary. From 1979 to 1982 he served as ILAB President, in 1985 he was made, and deservedly so, ILAB President of Honour.

A high-flying book presentation in the Giant Ferris Wheel of the world-famous Prater will be the next step in the ILAB Pop Up Celebrations in Vienna on UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day 2016 – certainly one of the ultimate highlights of the day. The Giant Ferris Wheel is Vienna at its best. Built in 1897 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Emperor Franz Josef I., a circular trip on one of the most significant and fascinating steel constructions worldwide with a unique view of the city of Vienna, is an absolute cultural and architectural must for every visitor to Austria's capital. So if you haven't taken a ride on the Giant Ferris Wheel and enjoyed the breathtaking views over the roofs of Vienna, this is your once in a lifetime experience. On 23 April, from 10 am to noon, the members of the Austrian Antiquarian Booksellers' Association will take you on a trip high above Vienna while offering rare and fine books in one of the wheel cabins and raising money to buy school books for the children in South Sudan.

It is with great sadness that the German Antiquarian Booksellers' Association reports the death of its long-deserved member and Member of Honour Dr. Lotte Roth-Wölfle. She died on April 29, 2011, shortly before her 100th birthday, and only one day after the re-opening of her beautiful antiquarian bookshop which has been situated in Munich since 1945. Dr. Lotte Roth-Woelfle was a remarkable woman, probably the oldest rare book dealer in Germany and in Europe. From time to time she still visited her shop in Munich's Amalienstraße which has been a famous address for rare and fine books for more than 60 years. The shop is now run by Franziska Bierl, while Lotte Roth-Wölfle's daughter Dr. Christine Grahamer continues the tradition of the family company Robert Wölfle KG in the third generation, also still in the same premises.

Dear Fellow-Presidents, I am very sorry to be the bearer of bad news which are related to the thefts at the Girolamini-Library at Naples and Marino Massimo de Caro. Christian Westergaard, from Denmark, was arrested some days ago - and later released - for supposedly handling stolen Italian books. The books in question had no immediate Italian provenance (some came from the Macclesfield Library) but were on an Italian list of stolen books, presumably those known to have been stolen by De Caro and his accomplices. Because Christian and other dealers openly list their stock online, it seems that the Italian investigators just matched authors and titles, without reading the detailed notes, or examining the photos on the web, which would have demonstrated that these were not the copies in question. It is also more than curious that all of the eleven books that were confiscated by the Danish Police were titles that had appeared in auction 59 at Zisska & Schauer, Munich, in May of 2012. All of the then withdrawn books– totaling up to 540 – are still kept under lock by the Bavarian Police and that factor was forgotten by the Italian investigators! It may therefore even be that they do not fully understand that these books exist in multiple copies.

Karl Donhofer, for many years antiquarian bookseller and managing director of Franz Deuticke (Vienna), member of the Austrian Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association (VAO) and father of ILAB Vice-President Norbert Donhofer, passed away on 20th June 2013. An obituary by Hansjörg Krug.