ILAB News 46 | | ILAB News 46

ILAB News 46

Published on 02 July 2015

FOR THE LOVE OF BOOKS!

MELBOURNE RARE BOOK WEEK, JULY 16 - 26, 2015

"Why do we love books? Because like nothing else they teach us, they entertain us, they delight or they challenge us, sometimes all at once. There are not many other things in the world that can do that."

Jörn Harbeck, ANZAAB President

Booklovers will be drawn to Melbourne for a week full of interesting, amazing and outstanding events dedicated exclusively to the wonderful world of rare books and book collecting. Melbourne Rare Book Week commenced in 2012 as a partnership between the Australian and New Zealand Association of Antiquarian Booksellers (ANZAAB), the University of Melbourne and eight other literary institutions. In 2014, over 40 free events were held at libraries, literary and historical societies and bookshops throughout Melbourne, attracting local, national and international visitors. Now in its fourth year, Melbourne Rare Book Week is well established in the City of Melbourne's event calendar. It is a major attraction for book collectors, librarians and all who have a love of words, print on paper and literary heritage.

> Melbourne Rare Book Week: the highlights > Melbourne Rare Book Week: the full program

Melbourne Rare Book Week culminates in the

43rd ANZAAB AUSTRALIAN ANTIQUARIAN BOOK FAIR

Come, see, discover and purchase rare and unusual books, maps and prints, as well as manuscripts, photographs and other historical paper-based items offered by Australian and international antiquarian booksellers at Wilson Hall, University of Melbourne, from 24 to 26 July 2015.

> Visit the official website

THE WRITTEN HERITAGE OF MANKIND IN PERIL

THEFT, RETRIEVAL, SALE AND RESTITUTION OF RARE BOOKS, MAPS AND MANUSCRIPTS

ILAB PRESIDENT NORBERT DONHOFER SPOKE AT THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BOOK THEFTS HELD AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY IN LONDON.

Do we need more drastic measures to prevent the theft of books, maps, manuscripts and other art on paper? On 26 June 2015 internationally renowned experts - librarians, archivists, lawyers, auctioneers and rare book dealers - discussed one of the global problems of the antiquarian book trade in the 21st century: the theft of books, manuscripts and prints from public collections such as, in recent years, the Girolamini Library in Naples, the National Library of Sweden, the Danish Royal Library in Copenhagen and, right now, from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris.

ILAB President Norbert Donhofer was invited to speak at the conference in London, which will be followed up by another international meeting in New York in 2016.

> Talk given by ILAB President Norbert Donhofer at the international conference in the British Library, London

ILAB BOOKSELLERS RAISE OVER 10.000 EUROS

TO BUY SCHOOL BOOKS FOR CHILDREN IN SOUTH SUDAN

ILAB's participation in UNESCO's 2015 World Book and Copyright Day was a great success. Hundreds, if not thousands of booksellers and members of the public were involved. On 32 ILAB Pop Up Fairs in 12 countries from Australia to Asia, South Africa, Europe and the United States ILAB affiliates brought books to the people at the most unexpected places: a barge on a canal in Amsterdam, a woolshed in the Australian bush, a library in an underprivileged section of Antwerp, an elegant historic business man's club in Munich, a bookshop in central Tokyo, the new Museum of Literature in Vienna, a brew pub in Portland Oregon, a whole street in Groningen ... there was even a travelling pop up fair in England with "Celeste the Rare Book Campervan" visiting primary schools on the road from Salisbury to Oxford. And the booksellers did much more on UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day 2015:

We are very proud to report that ILAB affiliates across the world raised over 10,000 Euros for UNESCO's South Sudan literacy project. Thank you very much!

> The ILAB Pop Up Book Fairs on ILAB.org > The ILAB Pop Up Book Fairs on the blog

SUMMER READING I

TWO FACES OF 20th CENTURY CHINESE PAINTING

These days, it seems as though you could walk into your local coffee shop, shout out names like Matisse, Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh, Pollock, Klimt, Rembrandt, Renoir, Degas, Munch, Chagall, Kahlo, Vermeer, or Dali and every single person there would know what these 14 people had in common. They are painters! They have different styles, are from different cultures, different countries, different eras and have different backgrounds, yet we know them all, despite - probably - never having taken an art history class in our lives.

Now for a test! What do the names Qi Baishi and Zhang Dagian have in common?

> They are "the darlings of the Chinese Art World in the early to mid 20th century", Vic Zoschak writes.

SUMMER READING II

CORRUGATIONS: SOME SPECULATIONS ON AUSTRALIAN TIN

The artist's book is a thriving art form in Australia. While books most typically convey ideas through their text, artists' books express meaning through a combination of illustrations, typography, and the form of the book itself. In Corrugations, Australian artist Katie Clemson worked in collaboration with the poet Anne Bell to capture the essence of the land where she grew up and created a tribute to a material that has become a characteristic part of Australia's architectural landscape: corrugated iron.

> Are you collecting artists' books? Books@Bromer describes one of most beautiful items

SUMMER READING III

MYSTERIOUS WATERS

"I returned to Scotland Yard to report ..." - an opening to a sentence which anywhere in the English-speaking world can only mean one thing - that we are about to enter the realm of that peculiarly English, much-loved, and perennially popular school of detective fiction based on the exploits of the Detective Branch of the Metropolitan Police, originally established in 1842 with a complement of just two inspectors, six sergeants and a number of constables. It became Criminal Investigation Department in 1878. This particular sentence in fact comes from a story published in Chambers' Edinburgh Journal in August 1849 as the second in an irregular series which ran between 1849 and 1852 under the general title of Recollections of a Police Officer. And they are the very first detective stories in English literature."

> Laurence Worms dives into "Mysterious Waters"

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