The ABAA Gender Equity Initiative is proud to announce the fourth year of the ABAA Mentorship Program, designed to further the ABAA's mission to promote ethical standards and professionalism in the antiquarian book trade, encourage the collecting and preservation of rare and antiquarian books and related materials, and facilitate collegial relations within the trade. Goals Ď Further the mission of the ABAA. Ď Provide dealers early in their careers with the opportunity to advance their professional development. Ď Build a recruitment pipeline for the Association that enhances the number of qualified applicants. Ď Advance the diversity of new members. Ď Allow mentees to build a relationship with an ABAA member. Ď Educate potential candidates about a career in the trade (for example, graduate students looking for a profession outside of academia). Structure With the assistance of the Gender Equity Initiative, mentors and mentees will be paired with consideration of a variety of factors such as any specific requests, specialization/area of focus, and business structure. Location could also be a point of consideration. Once paired, mentors and mentees will commence a one year period of mentorship (May 15, 2024-May 1, 2025). Over the course of the year, mentors and mentees are required to have face-to-face communication for a minimum of 1-2 hours each month (this could be completed electronically). The schedule structure to meet this requirement will be determined by the pair. We e... [more 2024 ABAA Mentorship Program]
The ABAA New York International Antiquarian Book Fair returns to the Park Avenue Armory in New York City from April 4-7, 2024, for its 64th Edition. Here are some of the highlights that exhibitors will be offering at this year's Fair! Decorative Wood Panel with State Seal of Delaware. 7-1/2” x 10” x 1-1/2”; 2-1/2” metal connecting plate with screws on each side; dowl opening from top to bottom. Though in rough condition, it nonetheless carries emotional solemnity and significance as a witness to the Lincoln funeral journey, for it lay watch over Lincoln's coffin for the entire twenty days. Though a bit dulled, the panel still easily shows the seal for the State of Delaware; the panel must have aged gracefully, along with the car itself. The railroad coach that carried Lincoln's body from Washington to Springfield for twenty days in April 1865 was originally built as a private railroad car -- a “presidential coach”-- named The United States, for the use of the president and his cabinet. When the car was completed in early 1865, it had been more than a year in the making, and with its upholstered walls, wood paneling, decorative painted panels, and etched-glass windows, it was one of the most lavishly appointed railroad cars ever built. Its 16 broad-tread wheels could travel over nearly all gauge railroads, and its sides were ironclad, with armor-plating between the outer and inner walls. The car was 42.5 feet long and 8.5 feet wide and had a newly developed heating... [more New York Book Fair Highlights]
The ABAA is accepting entries for the 2024 National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest where more than $6,000 in prizes will be awarded to student collectors! The National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest is jointly administered by the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA), the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies (FABS), the Grolier Club, and the Center for the Book and the Rare Books and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress. The contest is open to all prizewinners of college contests, whether or not first prize, and to interested students whose institutions do not offer contests. More information can be found here... All entries should be submitted here (in PDF) by June 10, 2024. For more information on the contest, please visit contest.abaa.org... 2023 NCBCC winners... [more 2024 National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest]
View the recording of this event here: To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the ABAA, the March Brown Bag Lunch Series will feature a panel discussion with veteran and young ABAA members. They will share their experiences with book scouting, memorable moments as a dealer in the trade, the ups and downs of a book dealer, and much more! Treasure Hunt Stories Wednesday, March 20, 2024 at 2pm ET Advance questions can be submitted to xin@abaa.org by noon ET Monday, March 18th. Moderator: Lizzy Young, Lizzyoung Bookseller (member since 2016) Lizzyoung Bookseller sells rare books, ephemera, and manuscripts with a focus on food and drink History, women's history, cultural history, children's books, and anything else that makes her smile. A former pastry chef, Lizzy caught the bookselling bug when she started working for her father, Roy Young Bookseller. The rest is history. Panelist: Jim Cummins, James Cummins, Bookseller (member since 1981) A lifelong collector, Jim started James Cummins Bookseller in 1978 after running the rare book department at Brentano's. He is a prominent and well respected figure in the antiquarian book world and a fixture at auctions. His expertise is wide and is reflected in the breadth of stock at his namesake firm. You can see Jim in action in the 2019 documentary, The Booksellers. Panelist: Megan Bell, Underground Books (member since 2024) Megan Bell is the co-owner, along with Josh Niesse, of Underground Books, ABAA in Carrollton, Georgia. One of the ne... [more Brown Bag Series: Treasure Hunt Stories]
The ABAA and Sanford L. Smith & Associates are proud to announce that the British Library will be the institutional partner for ABAA Connect at this year's New York International Antiquarian Book Fair. A program resurrected from the early 2000's, ABAA Connect will allow our 2024 institutional partner, the British Library, to request items at the NYIABF from exhibitors, and have those items purchased for the Library as recommended by tax-advantaged contributions from donors to the American Trust for the British Library (ATBL). British Library curators will browse a list of items exhibitors will bring to the fair and choose items they are interested in acquiring. Our British Library and ATBL colleagues and donors will attend the fair and discover these items together in person, and donors can either contribute the value of an item in its entirety or make a gift in part to the acquisition value for a particular item. Unique to the 2024 ABAA Connect program: the ATBL will guarantee the acquisitions requested by British Library curators. The NYIABF hopes this program will expose curators to exciting items, connect booksellers with the British Library and their curators, entice donors to attend the fair and purchase items that will benefit both the British Library and their personal collections, and inspire any fairgoer to become a donor. Location Park Avenue Armory 643 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065 www.armoryonpark.org Preview: $75 (Includes one daily re-admission) Single-Day A... [more ABAA & British Library Bring ABAA Connect to New York Book Fair in April]
The Celluloid Paper Trail: Film Script Identification Course at UCLA August 5-9 2024 Kevin Royal Johnson and Erin McGuirl will teach the first west coast Master Class on film script identification from August 5-9, 2024 at UCLA's California Rare Book School (CalRBS). Kevin Johnson has been a rare bookseller and appraiser for nearly 30 years. He is the author of the first book on film script identification, The Celluloid Paper Trail, published in 2019 by Oak Knoll Press and is the owner of Royal Books in Baltimore. Erin McGuirl/has been the Executive Director of the Bibliographical Society of America since 2018. She is trained as a special collections librarian, and has worked for over a decade with institutional and private collections in New York City. Course overview: What kind of text is a screenplay? How were they made, and by whom? How did their form and function change over time? In hands-on exercises with archival film scripts and through course lectures, students will explore these questions by learning about the history, development, and bibliographical identification/of the American film script, from the silent era to the end of the twentieth century./ Screenplays are guides to the creation of another work of art: a motion picture. Students enrolled in/The Celluloid Paper Trail/will learn to see scripts as “blueprints” for films and to identify the material cues that tell how they fit into the larger filmmaking process, revealing the contributions of both credite... [more The Celluloid Paper Trail: Film Script Identification Course at Cal-RBS Aug 5-9]
How does one shop an ABAA Virtual Book Fair? Our Virtual Book Fairs combine the convenience of online commerce with the community of in-person book fairs. Just like at an physical book fair, you will be able to: browse the inventory of many exhibitors, but now with the advantage of only having to check out once no matter how many exhibitors you purchase from! speak with the exhibitors in real time, via digital tools like FaceTime and Zoom. be among the first to have the opportunity to buy newly acquired or cataloged items from the most-reputable dealers in the business. shop the fair for a set time only. Our virtual book fairs last for 2-4 days. So arrive early, make a plan to visit the exhibitors you know, and find the material you want! Browsing Options By exhibitor — Browse your favorite booksellers first (organized alphabetically) By aisle — It's a big fair, and you'll want to see every exhibitor. In this case our aisles correspond to geographic region. By product type — Are you particularly interested in maps or photographs? In search of autographs or ephemera? Hunting certain modern first editions? — This is another way to zero in on the items of most interest to you. By budget — Shop items under $500 and don't get distracted by the big-ticket items (as amazing as those may be). By specific item — A keyword search will quickly show you the item(s) you want without having to spend hours walking the show floor! How is an ABAA Virtual Book Fair different from a... [more How to Shop a Virtual Book Fair]
Edit: You can view a recording of this event here: ---- Please join the ABAA Gender Equity Initiative on Zoom on February 14th, 2024, at 2 PM ET for a Brown Bag Lunch Series with Alexandra (Allie) Alvis, Curator of Special Collections, Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library. Rare books and manuscripts are more than historical objects, they are potent – and elastic – symbols. Shifting cultural values emphasize (and de-emphasize) parts of history to suit their goals, with books frequently being caught up in the mix, but rarely a focal point. Despite being relegated to supporting roles, the material forms of books in popular culture specifically tell us a great deal not only about how non-specialists conceptualize historical periods, but of how they understand book history in general. Enter Pop Bibliography. The most common place people encounter book history is not in the library, but through popular media. Pop Bibliography is the study of the production and reception of bibliography through this media lens, to reverse-engineer the popular concept(s) of the "Old Book" in Western pop culture. This talk will delve into the origins of some of the historical sources of these concepts, and address how they speak to the fetishization of the book as an object in the digital age. February 14th @ 2pm Alexandra (Allie) Alvis - Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library Pop Bibliography: Finding Book History in Popular Media Allie Alvis (she/they) is the Curator of Special Collections at the Wi... [more Brown Bag Series: Allie Alvis]
Save the date for the ABAA Virtual Book Fair: Winter Edition! March 7-9, 2024 www.abaa.org/vbf Explore the finest rare books, manuscripts, maps, prints, and ephemera at our next virtual book fair. The doors will open at 12pm ET on Thursday, March 7 and remain open continuously until 7pm ET on Saturday, March 9. We invite you to shop the virtual booths of leading antiquarian booksellers from around the world and discover their latest acquisitions and rare finds. View participating dealers here... For more information visit: www.abaa.org/vbf... [more Virtual Book Fair: Winter Edition]
The 56th California International Antiquarian Book Fair is returning to San Francisco next month. The fair, sponsored by the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA), takes place February 9-11, 2024, at Pier 27 (cruise ship terminal). Widely recognized as one of the world's largest exhibitions of antiquarian books for sale, more than 100 exhibitors from around the world will present rare books, maps, illustrations, historical documents, and ephemera on a vast array of subjects and genres. “Post-pandemic, we are seeing resurgent demand for in-person fairs, where a global community of the top dealers offers the most sought-after collections of books, maps, illustrations, and ephemera. The experience of attending in person is like no other – it's a real-life treasure hunt.” -- Julie Roper, Director of the 56th California International Antiquarian Book Fair The fair boasts offerings in every conceivable genre including the first-ever catalog on the history of artificial intelligence (AI) from Novato book dealer and ABAA member Jeremy Norman. Part of this timely collection is an extremely rare, first edition pamphlet published in 1832 by Russian statistician and inventor Semyon Korsakov on what is believed to be one of the first machine-learning devices. Korsakov was a pioneer in the concept of “mechanized thought,” or artificial intelligence. The nearly 200-year-old AI print ephemera will be on exhibit and offered at the purchase price of $35,000. This ext... [more California Book Fair 2024]