Many booksellers have insurance policies that protect against loss, damage, and even liability, but what can you do to protect against crime? We asked experts from Risk Strategies and Michals Insurance to give us the low-down. In the case of credit card or check fraud, certain policies can cover loss. Kierstin Johnson of Risk Strategies says that certain Fine Art and Rare Book policies will treat ... [more]

Thanks to the ABAA for hosting the first (but not last) networking event for women in the book trade at this year's Boston Antiquarian Book Fair, the inaugural program in the ABAA's Women in Bookselling Initiative. The Boston gathering was inspired by a series of lively events in London this year, the first one organized by the women of Maggs, with later events sponsored by Peter Harrington, Quari... [more]

Since 1975 the William Reese Company has served a large international clientele of collectors and private and public institutions in the acquisition of rare books and manuscripts and in collection development. With a catalogue inventory of over forty thousand items and a general inventory of over sixty-five thousand items, we are among the leading specialists in the fields of Americana and world t... [more]

The second installment of Kaitlin Manning's new series on taking better pictures of rare books and ephemera. (Review the first part here...) Setting up a home studio does not need to be an expensive affair. Besides your camera, there are two basic elements to a studio: a backdrop and lighting. For the backdrop, the simplest and most effective method is to create a “scoop” background (sometimes... [more]

We round up interesting stories about the rare book world being discussed this week. Shakespeare's First Folios Go on Tour The Folger Shakespeare Library has anounced the cities that are getting a First Folio as part of their ambitious plan to put a copy of Shakespeare's First Folio on display in every state, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico, in 2016. Read more to discover where your nearest First... [more]

Ken Sanders Rare Books released Rare Books Catalogue #48, which features new acquisitions in the fields of Utah & the Mormons, Native & Western Americana, Maps & Photographs, and Illustrated Books & Wordless Novels. Catalogue 48 also offers some fantastic original artworks for sale and an exciting Charles Bukowski archive. The Lawbook Exchange is pleased to announce the publication of Catalogue 78... [more]

Things have changed in the Boston since the first ABAA Boston Book Fair was launched. And in a profession that deals in the old, change can be a good thing. There were shops that were within walking distance from each other. Others were a short subway ride or car ride away. And while we're going down memory lane, let's include Cambridge and a suburb or two. (Greg, Gloucester is not a suburb of Bos... [more]

I've been asked to dredge up a few memories about the Boston book fair, the venues it occupied prior to its current home at the Hines Convention Center, and some of the dealers who exhibited in Boston in previous generations. Our firm, Howard S. Mott, Inc., is one of six firms to have exhibited at every Boston book fair since its inception in 1976, the upcoming fair being the 38th Annual. The othe... [more]

Enter the Blogosphere I promised another Facebook related post this week, but instead I think it's time to switch gears and get acquainted with some other social media options out there before you start to think that I'm on Mark Zuckerberg's payroll. This week I will consider the pros and cons of blogging as well as some of the better sites out there that support the endeavor. The fact that anyone... [more]

The Lawbook Exchange just issued an E-List: Blackstone: 30 Items, inspired by the recent publication of Ann J. Laeuchli's Bibliographical Catalog of William Blackstone. Lowry-James Rare Prints & Books announced the publication of Catalogue Number Ten: Charles Livingston Bull. Joslin Hall Rare Books released Catalog #351: A Selection of Jane Yolen's Signed Poetry Broadsides and Catalog 352 - A Sele... [more]

The following is an excerpt from the third chapter of Collecting, Curating, And Researching Writers' Libraries, A Handbook, edited by Richard Oram and Joseph Nicholson (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014). This chapter deals with the role of the bookseller; other chapters deal with the roles of librarians, curators, and researchers, with accounts of some libraries, a list of authors' libraries preserved i... [more]

Two weeks ago, I was in York for the inaugural York Antiquarian Book Seminar (a British equivalent of the highly successful Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar). The whole experience was hugely invigorating. Here were 25 students, young and old, starting out in the rare book trade, full of promise, eagerness— and questions! One of the sessions I led was on cataloguing. For, as Roger Gaskell notes ... [more]

SELLING ON FACEBOOK? In my last post I talked a lot about the advantages of having a Facebook account for your business, including interacting with customers and colleagues, sharing content, getting “liked,” and learning about trends in your field; or, as one friend of mine put it, “the warm fuzzies.” So let's switch into copper baron mode here and discuss the other dimension that you've a... [more]

Hello. And greetings from England. When I was asked by the ABAA to become a contributor to The New Antiquarian, I was delighted. But what to write? Much is made of the differences between British and American English—two nations divided by a common language, and all that—and I'll admit that I enjoy discovering differences between the two forms of English on my regular visits to the US. There a... [more]

Facebook 101 Let's start with a little statistic: Facebook has over 1 billion active users; Earth has about 7 billion users by last count. Now, I know book dealers are not always known for their math skills, but I'm pretty sure that works out to about 1 in 7 people ON THE PLANET who use this particular social network. But don't let the numbers intimidate you. Facebook is as much about fostering sm... [more]

Choices, choices. If you are reading this, that means I didn't scare you off too badly with my last post about the wonderful world of social media. Huzzah! Gold stars all around! Now that we've dispelled some of the myths surrounding social media, there is the little matter of paring down the incredible number of networks out there into a manageable set from which to get started. As I mentioned in... [more]

I'm writing from the magnificent pile of stone and anguish known as Chapter 11 Books, situated between a Jiffy Lube and a drive-thru mortuary, and patronized primarily by people who'll have to come back when they've got more time. At the moment I'm wondering how one retires from a trade that most people take up after they retire. No answers are forthcoming. It's beginning to look as if I'll die wi... [more]

In a few days I'll be heading out to Colorado Springs for my fifth tour of duty on the faculty of the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar. Hard as it is for me to believe that five years have passed since my first visit to CABS, as a guest lecturer in 2010, harder still must it be for those who were involved with it from the start — wonderful dealers like Ed Glaser and Mike Ginsberg — to realize... [more]

Demystifying Social Media “Social media” may very well be the single most pervasive yet misunderstood term of the last decade. I would be pointing out the obvious to say that over time, social media has fundamentally changed the way we interact; it has also raised the bar for businesses, altered the way we construct communities and discussion, and given birth to some pretty cryptic lingo (be w... [more]

Each year the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) holds a four day Preconference focused on special collections. The location of the conference and the theme change annually; this year the event was held in Las Vegas and explored "space, place, and the artifact in special collections". The conference allows special collections libra... [more]

The making of catalogs is on my mind tonight. I just put my own nineteenth catalog to bed — it left for the printer's an hour ago, a massive thing by my standards; over a hundred pages, just shy of two hundred-fifty items, all pictured. Research and cataloguing aside, lots of work goes into a catalog like that. The last two weeks at Lorne Bair Rare Books have been spent frantically photographing... [more]

The Midwest Chapter of the ABAA has just announced a new annual scholarship to the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar! Details for 2014 applicants are below. The Florence Shay/Midwest Chapter CABS Scholarship In memory of long-time member Florence Shay (1922-2012), the Midwest Chapter of the ABAA offers a $1500 educational scholarship to attend the 2014 Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar. It covers ... [more]