A PhD on the history of ILAB! Congratulations to Alena Lavrenova!

Friday, 12th December 2014 was a great day for ILAB – and for Alena Lavrenova. On this day her thesis on the history of ILAB was publicly defended at Moscow State University of Printing Arts. The decision of the Council was positive and unanimous, it included a recommendation to further work in this field and to publish a monograph on the League’s history in Russian and in English.

In more than four years of extensive academic research at Moscow University and in the Library of Amsterdam, where the ILAB archives are kept, Alena Lavrenova has written an excellent book on the history of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers since its beginnings in 1947/1948 up to the present time. Alena’s book covers all aspects of ILAB:

the ILAB Code of Usages and Customs, the ILAB Congresses and international antiquarian book fairs held under the auspices of the League all around the world from Europe to America, Australia and Japan, the founding of the ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography, ILAB’s cooperation with international organizations like IFLA and CINOA, the creation of the ILAB Metasearch, the Stolen Book Database and the ILAB website, the founding of the ILAB Internships – an educational program for young antiquarian booksellers –, and all the documents, publications and activities of ILAB within the past 67 years of its existence.

Alena Lavrenova, post-graduate student of Moscow State University of Printing Arts (2009-2013), was one of the first interns supported by the ILAB Internship Program which was initiated by ILAB President Norbert Donhofer in cooperation with the ILAB Committee and Professor Olga Tarakanova. In 2011 she spent four weeks in Austria, Hungary and the Netherlands as an ILAB Intern. From 2007 to 2011 Alena worked as a chief expert in the antiquarian book department of Gelos Auctions in Moscow, later as editor-in-chief of the magazine Pro knighi (“About Books”) and as an antiquarian book expert at Anticvarium Auctions. Currently she is working on her book about ILAB which we all hope will be published soon also in the English language.

Again, congratulations to Alena Lavrenova for her great work!

***

Pictures: Alena Lavrenova. An abstract of Alena Lavrenova’s thesis (in Russian) is attached as a pdf file.

ILAB Internships - Out of the classroom into the world

>>> Learn more!