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Moshe Prigan is an accomplished book collector, freelance writer, and retired teacher of art and history. He lives in Haifa, Israel but searches globally to make new acquisitions for his collection. While mainly interested in English and Italian volumes of Umberto Eco, he also collects other authors including Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood. Moshe has generously shared his collecting insights with us in the following interview.

In July 2007, JK Rowling fans around the world anxiously awaited the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book in Rowling's beloved Harry Potterseries. The official release of the English-language version was scheduled to take place on July 21, 2007. But readers in China got their hands on the novel a full ten days earlier, when the book unexpectedly popped up in book stores. Thousands bought the early editions...unaware that the copies in their hands had virtually nothing in common with the authorized edition actually written by JK Rowling.This new pirated edition was certainly not the first unauthorized Harry Potter book published in China. On the contrary, the popular series had fostered an entire cottage industry of book piracy. In some cases, people would scan and republish exact replicas of the authorized editions. In others, they would mimic the genuine article. One pirated edition, for instance, was called Harry Potter and the Half-Blooded Relative Prince. People also would write their own titles, which had little or no connection to Rowling's books. For years, one could easily find titles like Harry Potter and the Hiking Dragon or Harry Potter and the Big Funnel. Rowling's publisher waged a war against those responsible for the pirated editions, a difficult task given that even large Chinese publishers partook in the practice--then denied any knowledge of it.

Gertrude Benham was one of the most, possibly the most prolific traveller of all time, and of either sex. The present author is attempting to locate Benham's numerous paintings, sketches and photographs, which are not in any known archives. In a last letter to the Plymouth Museum, early 1935, shortly before the start of her ill-fated final journey, she states that she deposited them in a trunk in a warehouse in Bridport. Descendants of the Benham family believe they were destroyed in the Plymouth blitz of March 1941, but there is no evidence for this.

"A previously unknown letter of Robert the Bruce, addressed to the king of England, has been found in a British Library manuscript. The letter was written in 1310, and reveals how, when faced with an English army marching into Scotland, Robert made an eloquent appeal to King Edward II, asking for peace on the understanding that Scottish independence be recognized. Robert's letter, written in Latin, is entered into the pages of a manuscript made towards the end of the 15th century by the monks of Kirkstall Abbey (Yorkshire). Its significance was recognised by Professor Dauvit Broun of the University of Glasgow, the principal investigator of the Breaking of Britain project (Cross-border society and Scottish independence, 1216-1314) ..."

La natura internazionale dell'Associazione sta alla base delle regole di comportamento fissate nella Raccolta di Usi e Consuetudini a cui devono fare riferimento i diversi statuti delle associazioni nazionali. Più che del rispetto di codici e codicilli si tratta di un habitus mentale: il libraio antiquario è tenuto a comportarsi in modo irreprensibile dal punto di vista professionale e a cercare sempre, nell'eventualità di dispute, un accordo ragionevole, un gentlemen agreement. L'I.L.A.B. conta oggi circa 2000 membri, di cui circa 120 sono i librai italiani iscitti all'A.L.A.I.