For as long as I've been around there has existed a controversy over whether bookselling should be considered a trade or a profession. Well here is the answer and like all great truths it is succinct. Bookselling is a trade: Bookscouting is a profession.
De retour de la Foire de Stuttgart, je ne résiste pas à l'envie de vous faire partager quelques réflexions un peu malicieuses inspirées par l'observation d'un stand assez surréaliste et qui trônait près de l'entrée de la Foire.
There is far more information available today than ever before about what books are out there, what they are priced, etc. There are also far more books actually available to any given buyer than ever before, and as well there are more potential customers more readily available to dealers than has ever been the case before ...
It has always been my intention, since I began writing this column for Rare Book Review, to alternate chatty and anecdotal essays on bookish topics, with magisterial, carefully researched articles replete with detailed and incisive commentary on topics of immediate and vital interest to the rare book world. Thus after my self-indulgent and rambling article on poetry in the last issue, I was scheduled to reveal several exciting discoveries that would significantly forward the art and science of bibliography. And with that intention did I gather my copious research materials, as Heidi and I left for the weekend to our tiny cottage retreat by the shore in Cape May Point.
"The hotly anticipated Books in Hard Times conference held at the Grolier Club on September 22, 2009 drew 150 collectors, booksellers, and librarians. The usual suspects were in attendance along with a few new and young faces. One might have expected the mood to be dark and somber, but even before the opening remarks, the tenor of conversation in the audience was optimistic."
"On a cold Tuesday in Beijing, steam rose ghost-like from sewer grates in the wide, car-choked streets. The towering buildings, monuments to China's new wealth, stood a lonely watch as thickly bundled people hustled from heated lobby to taxi and back again. Street vendors' breath hung in a crystalline mist over full carts of fresh candied mandarin slices, twisted fried bread and roasted sweet potatoes ..."
During the last 15-20 years Russia has experienced a significant increase of public interest in collecting antiques, including old and rare books, and as a consequence - intensive development of the antique trade. This is confirmed by numerous facts: increase of the number of antique shops and dealers; enlargement of their stock; improvement of traditional and development of new technologies of the trade ...
It isn't easy being a bookseller these days. We are being assaulted from every side, by what seems to be progress, or at least that's what people call it. A few years ago I referred in print to the current explosion of instant world-wide communication technology as the Electronic revolution, comparing it to the Industrial revolution of the 19th century. I continued by pointing out that just as people living in the midst of that industrial explosion of mass manufacturing could hardly have foreseen the long-term effects of that major cataclysm ...
I have an idea for something that might actually provide the protection that copyright alone does not. As you might expect, it involves, once again, the internet. If that is where the crimes are now being committed, that is where we should put our cops to work. What I have in mind is a descriptive bibliographic database where booksellers can publish all their copyrighted descriptions in a way that clearly establishes priority and ownership. It would be a public place where you can claim what is yours. But it would also be much more than that. If enough booksellers participated, an open searchable database of this nature would soon constitute a valuable bibliographic reference that collectors, librarians, students and scholars could use for all types of research. It would make a useful permanent resource out of information that is now mostly ephemeral.
In the 1970s, theatre writer and bibliophile John Wolfson began accumulating what was to become one of the largest and most rare collections of works on Shakespeare in the world.
We went to the Grand Palais this June to enjoy the fair, buy some books and see old and new friends. The Grand Palais near the Arc de Triomphe is very spacious compared to the previous location of the fair at the Maison de la Mutualité in the Latin Quarter. There were many French dealers of course, but there seemed to be fewer dealers from other countries this year as compared to a few years before.
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Libreria Antiquaria Pregliasco and of the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, the Italian Academy of Art will honour these events with a "Colazione Letteraria" on April 8 , celebrating as well the Italian culture and the Piemontese tradition with a lecture about Galileo Galilei by David Freedberg, Professor of Art History at Columbia University. Andrew Robison, Curator of The National Gallery of Washington, will speak about Canaletto, while Umberto Pregliasco recounts one century of rare book trade in Italy. The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America was created in 1991 on the basis of a charter signed by the President of the Republic of Italy and the President of Columbia University. It is located in New York City at 1161 Amsterdam Avenue, between 116th and 118th Streets; the doorway inscription reads "Casa Italiana". The event is sponsored by Lavazza and Franco Martinetti.
Catalogues régionaux des incunables des bibliothèques publiques de France. Volume XVIII. Bibliothèque de l'École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Édité par Dominique Coq. Collection Histoire et civilisation du livre. École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE). Genève, Librairie Droz, 2012. 334 p., ill.
In early 2006, however, John told me that it was time for him to retire. I had known this time would eventually come (though I had been hoping he would work into his 90s!). But when he talked about the books he wanted to write and the travel he wanted to do, it was hard to come up with a convincing argument for postponing retirement. I then had to make yet one more decision. I was going to turn 60 in February of 2007, so perhaps it was time to think about slowing down and eliminating some of the stress in my life. I knew that my stress level could only increase once John had gone, as he was going to be hard to replace. My time at the beach house was so relaxing that I could visualize a lighter work load with more vacation time. I loved reading and collecting (especially in the field of Delaware history). Was this the time to sell the publishing business?
