ILAB President’s Report: 2024-2025

ILAB President’s Report: 2024-2025
Angus O'Neill

It has been a short year (October to July), but a busy one. The original aim of ILAB, ‘establishing new hope for international peace through open markets’, has never been more relevant than it is today. Legislation continues to encroach on our freedoms: some of it is well-intentioned, even if it’s often misguided and disproportionate; much of it is unconstructive, and some even malign. We have been trying to cut a path through all of it.

One of the leading issues facing us has been the uncertainty regarding the USA’s import tariffs. Although books are nominally exempt, as informational materials, the interpretation and implementation of import regulations has at times been haphazard and unpredictable. (This applies to most other countries, as well.) ILAB has been flooded with questions about these tariffs. We don’t mind, of course – that’s what we’re here for – but it is very hard to answer policy questions when there is every indication that the policymakers themselves are making it up as they go along! All that we can do is monitor, and advise; and we’ve been doing that as best we can. The EU has also ploughed on with its rules on the import and export of cultural goods: we, and many of the national associations, have been negotiating on these issues since 2018, and we’ve already achieved quite a lot, especially in terms of obtaining realistic value thresholds, and concessions limiting the time we have to devote to paperwork; but there does seem to be an inexorable trend towards tighter regulation, much of it ill-informed. While we fully support the fight against illegal trafficking of cultural objects, we will continue to question any legislation which seems counter-productive or disproportionate; we have, for instance, so far seen no evidence that suggests that the trade in rare books is responsible for any significant contribution to terrorist funding.

ILAB has made real progress in contributing to the debates on cultural property: rather than protest about everything from the sidelines, we have engaged with the European Commission, with UNESCO, and numerous other bodies, including the Rare Books and Special Collections Section of IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations), the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL), the Expert Group against Theft, Trafficking and Tampering (EGATTT), the International

Council on Archives (ICA) and the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) in the USA. We’ve attended numerous conferences organised by the aforementioned groups and will continue to do so. And our membership of CINOA (the ‘Confédération Internationale des Négociants en Œuvres d’Art’) continues to give excellent value in terms of lobbying expertise and cross-market support.

ILAB has pursued several educational initiatives as well: we offer sponsorship to students and course organisers across the world, notably at CABS and YABS, among many others. I have even taught a course myself, on ‘The New Trade in Old Books’, with my ABA/ILAB colleague and friend Leo Cadogan, at London University’s London Rare Books School. Our flagship, though, is the series of ILAB Symposia. The fourth of these will take place in Melbourne this month: see https://ilab.org/event/4th-ila... . We’re deeply grateful to Sally Burdon and the ANZAAB board for arranging and sponsoring this.

Another link with the world of scholarship is very close to our hearts. Next year will see the celebration of the 19th ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography, the world’s leading prize honouring outstanding publications in the field of bibliography and book history. Authors, publishers, academics, scholars, and the book trade are now invited to submit publications. The prize is awarded every four years, with a first prize of $10,000 and second and third prizes of $5000 and $3000 respectively. For the first time, three additional awards of $1000 each will be offered for a publication from an Asian, African, and Central and South American publisher or author.

The Missing Books Register goes from strength to strength: it has attracted positive comment from law enforcement authorities and cultural bodies, and was even recently mentioned in a doctoral thesis. It’s proof of our commitment to honesty and transparency, and it continues to fulfil its primary task in reuniting books with their rightful owners.

Much of our work goes on behind the scenes: we continue to liaise with INTERPOL and other crime-fighting organisations, often dealing with highly confidential information, and we sometimes have to help settle international disputes. We can’t publicise any of this work, but it happens, and it all takes time.

But... after all this, we still manage to find time for the ‘fun stuff’. We had a great Congress in Amsterdam last year (many thanks to the board of the NVvA, and indeed to their predecessors whose brilliant plans had to be put on hold by the pandemic); I know you will all be having a fantastic time in Melbourne, thanks to Doug Stewart, Dawn Albinger and ANZAAB (I only wish I could be with you); and we have Berlin in 2026 to look forward to, where the programme offered by Dr Markus Brandis and the VDA is already taking exciting shape.

ILAB is, of course, very much a collective effort. I could have achieved nothing without the rest of the Committee: Mats Petersson (Vice-President), Robert Frew (Treasurer), and Nicolas Malais (General Secretary), as well as Scott DeWolfe, Mario Giupponi, Liam McGahern and Philipp Penka. And of course I am enormously grateful to our Executive Secretary, Angelika Elstner, for keeping the whole show on the road! I feel very lucky to have had such a wonderful team to work with.

I could go on. You can read much more about what we do on our website, especially via this link: https://ilab.org/article/binding-the-book-trade-together-how- associations-work-to-protect-and-promote-dealers-part-3-of-3 . But if you take away one thing from this report, I hope it will be that ILAB wants all of you and your friends and customers to prosper, and to continue to derive pleasure from the wonderful world it is our privilege to work in. We’re here to help you achieve that: after all, ‘Amor Librorum Nos Unit’.

Angus O’Neill, ILAB President July 2025