The Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America is proud to announce another edition of the paid internship program co-sponsored by AbeBooks. We invite you to apply and share this opportunity with qualified applicants at your institution and beyond. This 10-week paid, hands-on, learning-oriented program seeks to provide an opportunity for individuals seeking to pursue a career in the antiquarian and rare book trade by offering tools, experiences, and exposures necessary to assist them in achieving their career goals. The intern will gain experience in research, cataloging, customer relations, and more with an ABAA member as host. Application Requirements Minimum requirement of a high school diploma, OR currently enrolled student in any degree program, OR recent graduate (< 1-year post-grad). Must be detail-oriented, have experience doing independent research, have strong writing skills and time management, and be comfortable working on solo and collaborative projects. Prior experience working in a bookstore, library, or customer service setting is a plus. Ability to secure summer housing independently and ability to coordinate commute if necessary. Ability to perform basic video recording and editing for internship projects. ABAA INTERNSHIP APPLICATION The application deadline is 2 PM ET on April 14, 2025 ABAA Headquarters will be available throughout the entire process, from applications to internship pairings through the completion of the program, to address any questio... [more ABAA Internship Program]

Books are more than just stored knowledge—they are physical objects worthy of thoughtful and dynamic display. Whether for a temporary pop-up exhibition or a longer-term showcase under glass, displaying these heritage objects requires careful consideration of both aesthetics and preservation care. For March, the Brown Bag Lunch Series would like to invite you to join Natasha Herman of Redbone Bindery for her talk on The Display of Books in Exhibition Spaces on Tuesday, March 25, at 2 pm ET. This lecture will explore key principles of book display, including structural support, preventive conservation best practices, design and display contexts. By examining the intersection of physics, materials, and exhibition design, attendees will gain practical strategies for creating visually engaging yet preservation-conscious book displays. The Display of Books in Exhibition Spaces. Tuesday, March 25 @ 2 PM ET Register here... Natasha Herman Natasha Herman is founder and sole proprietor of Redbone Bindery, a book conservation studio focused on the care and preservation of antiquarian books. Concurrently, she directs the STILT project, where she brings her craft and engineering skills to the design, development and production of book support and exhibition products. Natasha has taught ethics and approaches to heritage conservation as guest lecturer at the National Library of Australia, the Auckland City Library in New Zealand, the Canadian Museum of History and National Gallery of Cana... [more March Brown Bag: Display of Books]

The 2025 winner of the California Young Book Collector's Prize is Kierra Duncan. Kierra is 27 years old. She was raised in the Los Angeles area and graduated from UCLA summa cum laude in English and current doctoral candidate at Princeton University. Duncan's collection, “Translating Blackness Across Space: American, British, and Caribbean Editions of 20th Century Black Literature.” wowed the judges with her collection Translating Blackness Across Space: American, British, and Caribbean Editions of 20th-Century Black Literature. Duncan brought together works by Toni Morrison, V.S. Reid, Gayl Jones, George Lamming, Eric Walrond, and Sylvia Wynter to chronicle and analyze manifestations of Black identity in anglophone literature and publishing. Along with collecting the work of iconic twentieth-century Black writers, Duncan examined book design, marketing, and other paratext to gain insight into how publishers communicated Black stories when selling books to new national audiences. Duncan wrote that her collection was "driven by two needs. First, the urge to figure out what that sticky, elusive something is that made Black inaccessible when published in another English speaking nation. Second, to identify the (un)conscious methods deployed by publishers to address this problem before the reader even began the book. I remain guided by a question: What alterations were made to a literary text in order to make it accessible to other English speaking nations? To explore this qu... [more 2025 Annual California Young Book Collector’s Prize Awarded]

The ABAA Diversity Initiative is proud to announce the first season of a guided discovery program for those historically underrepresented among workers in the trade. Designed to co-occur with annual ABAA book fairs, the program offers an introduction to antiquarian book fairs, career insight with ABAA members, visits to local ABAA member open shops/offices, networking with institution professionals, and more. This Diversity Discovery Program offers stipends of up to $2,500 to two individuals to visit the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair during the week of the fair. Participants will be guided by an ABAA member and with an itinerary of multiple networking activities. The Fall 2024 ABAA Diversity Initiative Discovery Program selected Julie Browny and Patrick Matherly as recipients. The program successfully concluded on November 7th, 2024. Want to get to know Julie and Patrick and their program journey? Read their blog below! Read Julie Browny's blog here... Read Patrick Matherly's blog here... The program would like to thank the following libraries, private collectors, and ABAA firms for hosting the participants. John A. Buchtel, Lauren Graves, BOSTON ATHENÆUM John Overholt, Molly Schwartzburg, Mathew Wittmann, Houghton Library Victor Betts, Jenny Gotwals, Patrice Green, Schlesinger Library Alexandra (Allie) Alvis, Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library Lisa Baskin Alan Klein Sandy Neubauer Brattle Book Shop Bernett Rare Books Bromer Booksellers The program would also ... [more 2024 ABAA Discovery Program Participant Experience]

Position Announcement: Rare Book Cataloger, Burnside Rare Books Burnside Rare Books is seeking a full-time rare book cataloger to join our small but growing team. Starting salary is in the range of $45,000-$75,000 commensurate with experience. All work is to be done in person at our offices in Portland, Oregon. Primary duties are cataloging and researching new inventory, maintaining inventory control, photographing books, working with customers to sell books, shipping orders, and basic office duties. This position may require travel to book fairs or to meet with clients, and other duties may be assigned. Qualified candidates will possess either an academic background in rare book cataloging, or practical experience cataloging for a rare book firm or auction house. This position requires attention to detail, excellent writing and verbal communication skills, strong research abilities, a demonstrated knowledge of book history and the care and preservation of rare books, a professional and client-oriented demeanor, and the ability to occasionally lift boxes of material up to 50 lbs. Please email cover letter and resume to info@burnsiderarebooks.com. No phone calls or visits please. [more Job Opening: Rare Book Cataloger at Burnside Rare Books]

As the current president of the ABAA, I have been attending the biannual Congress of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB), the umbrella organization that brings together national Associations from around the world. Our hosts in Amsterdam have outdone themselves! The main Congress was preceded by meetings to discuss official ILAB business. The protection of cultural property, while pursued for the noblest of reasons, can lead to incredible bureaucratic burdens and even become counterproductive if people familiar with the actual function of the book trade aren't involved in shaping policy. Fortunately, ILAB's Executive Secretary Angelika Elstner has been elected to the European Union's Art Market Expert Group to provide precisely this kind of input. Among other contributions, ILAB has shown that Interpol's figures for stolen library materials were wildly exaggerated. For example, it claimed that 472,933 pieces of “Library material” had been seized in the past year, which, if true, would mean that the book trade was awash in literal mountains of stolen goods. ILAB was able to show that almost the entire figure derived from a single 500-year-old family archive in Italy that was confiscated by the state as part of a dispute over legal ownership. In point of fact, ILAB and its affiliates are always eager to protect the integrity of institutional collections, and now ILAB has a voice in the European Union to help shape policies that sustain this goal withou... [more ILAB Congress in Amsterdam: Business and Pleasure]

The CABS-Minnesota Antiquarian Book Seminar celebrated its 48th year this July on the campus of St. Olaf College. The class of over 50 convened for an intensive week of hands-on instruction and informal conversations about the book trade, including impromptu book shops in the dorms and a lecture from specialty dealer Alexander Akin of Bolerium Books. 22 of the students were supported by scholarships, including from the ABAA Woodburn Fund. Find out more at www.bookseminars.com. [more 2024 CABS-Minnesota Antiquarian Book Seminar]

Jeff Weber is proprietor of Jeff Weber Rare Books, Montreux and Neuchâtel, Switzerland. He is a member of ILAB, ABAA and VEBBUKU/SLACES (Switzerland). What, by its nature, would be rarer than an original Gutenberg Bible? The invoice that recorded the sale of the first books printed with moveable type! The receipt! Yes, those most-often tossed slips of paper, recording a seemingly trivial event, those receipts are golden to the researcher today if receipts would be appreciated. The receipt will never be as valuable as the item itself, but the tossed data is where the story of how a book (or another item) was distributed, who was involved, and when. When that receipt is tossed, its recorded history is lost, perhaps never to be recognized again. The purpose of writing about receipts is to make the point that there is scholarly value in saved receipts, particularly when they unlock the mysterious ties between buyer and seller. I will refer to a number of personal projects that have benefitted from saved receipts or would have benefitted more had those receipts been kept. By some pertinent examples, I hope that the reader will consider the value of using receipts in their research. This, by my purpose, is to encourage institutions and collectors as well as those who inherit personal papers, to keep notes, receipts, email archives, manuscripts, all kinds of primary research data that can be used in the future to understand more by using those receipts and other materials, to advan... [more Book Receipts: Ephemera with Essential Intellectual Value]

The National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest awards ceremony was held at the Library of Congress on September 13, 2024. The Contest was established in 2005 by Fine Books & Collections Magazine to recognize outstanding book collecting efforts by college and university students--the program aims to encourage young collectors to become accomplished bibliophiles. ABAA Member and collector Rebecca Romney was the featured speaker and made the winners and guests feel welcome. The Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA), the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies (FABS), and the Center for the Book and the Rare Books and Special Collections Division (the Library of Congress) jointly assumed leadership of the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest in 2010. The Grolier Club, a noted book collectors organization, joined us shortly afterward. Incidentally, each winner has a year-long membership at the Grolier Club in New York City. We thank this year's judges who are part of these partner organizations: Shannon Struble, Jennifer Larson, and Sharon Gee; Sheryl Jaeger, Declan Kiely, Olivia Loksing Moy, and Nancy Boehm who are each collectors and bibliophiles in their own right. Incidentally, each winner has a year-long membership at the Grolier Club in New York City. We also thank Susan Jaffe Tane, the noted collector and philanthropist, for nurturing the next generation of collectors. Prizes are awarded to both the winning students and the libraries of the ... [more Meet the 2024 NCBCC Winners]

Fall 2024 ABAA Diversity Initiative Discovery Program Program Overview The ABAA Diversity Initiative is proud to announce the first season of a guided discovery program for those historically underrepresented among workers in the trade—black, indigenous, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community. Designed to co-occur with annual ABAA book fairs, the program offers an introduction to antiquarian book fairs, career insight with ABAA members, visits to local ABAA member open shops/offices, networking with institution professionals, and more. This Fall Diversity Discovery Program offers stipends of up to $2,500 to two individuals to visit the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair (November 8-10, 2024) during the week of the fair. Students will be guided by an ABAA member and with an itinerary of multiple networking activities. Program Date: November 6-10, 2024 Application Prerequisites � Self-identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and/or person of color) and/or LGBTQ+. � Minimum requirement of a high school diploma, OR currently enrolled student in any degree program (undergrads, Masters, PhD), OR recent graduate (< 1-year post-grad). � Applicants must be passionate about books, archival/library sciences, and/or bookselling. � Applicants must be able to travel and arrange their transportation and accommodation. Application: https://forms.gle/LCMMaS9Xqus2UG2P7 Application Deadline: August 16, 2024 *This application requires supplementary materials, so files will be uploaded ... [more ABAA Diversity Initiative Discovery Program]