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The seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933 was a decisive event in the world of book collecting. Numerous dealers and collectors – among them the most famous of the trade – were murdered by the Nazis. Those who survived were forced to close their companies and to hand them over to the Nazis.

Samuel F Haven, former librarian for the American Antiquarian Society, presided over one of the largest collections of broadsides in the world. Historians and rare book collectors alike cherish broadsides because they offer snapshots of moments in time, helping us to understand the zeitgeist of that era. Broadsides make ideal complements to a rare book collection, granting the collection greater depth and context.

When the Mexican wave of ILAB Pop Up Fairs reaches South Africa on 23 April 2015, a very special and generous event dedicated to the ILAB fundraising campaign on UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day will come to an exciting end. Cape Town based antiquarian bookseller Paul Mills and AntiquarianAuctions.com are offering a charity item in auction #42 to support the UNESCO literacy projects in South Sudan.

After I had been in Cornwall for about a year, I rang a colleague who said that he thought I was dead. Obviously I would have to improve my visibility; and so, in addition to exhibiting at book fairs, I make a point of coming to London regularly. Liskeard has a railway station, and it takes three and a half hours to Paddington. I receive about a dozen visitors a year, who come down because my books are not on the internet and you never know what you might find. I am like a magpie in my buying instincts. I like my books to have something unique about them. Although they are probably not talking about it, many dealers are taking this approach.

At this point - except for a tributory bow towards all those, named or not, who had set and kept the ABA in motion, and a passage on the then imminent fiftieth anniversary and tenth Congress - Dudley Massey's account concludes. To the far from dauntless continuator its coverage seems considerable and its evidence of determined burrowing in files and minutes impressive.

Travel lies are as old as literature itself, or perhaps even older. Sailors, the quintessential travellers, are well known for their sailor's yarns. And how better to impress the stay-at-homes than with stories of sea serpents, dwarfs, giants, headless or dog-faced people in faraway places? This was much more satisfying than telling of hard work, bad food and low pay.