At this year's New York Antiquarian Book Fair, I had the pleasure of meeting fellow journalist and bibliophile Pradeep Sebastian. He writes a column called Shelf Life in Businessworld magazine (based in India). Here's his refreshing take on the fair--meeting Nick Basbanes, catching sight of the Kelmscott Chaucer, and experiencing the joy and wonder of the NYABF.
Libraries and bookshops have always been great places for people watching.
What's that guy with the pink mohawk doing with a copy of Finnegan's Wake?
I sometimes wander about such places trying to spot the readers or book buyers who are likely to be academics. You've probably spotted a few of them yourself--they're the ones who keep opening books from the back rather than the front.
Academics often judge books by their scholarly apparatus--i.e., all those things which help a reader verify the accuracy and currency of an author's work: endnotes or footnotes; a bibliography; an index; an appendix for matters that may require more detailed discussion (but would otherwise interrupt the narrative of the main text). This apparatus traditionally has been included at the back of English-language books.
It's harder to spot academic readers than it used to be, because a lot of publishers have ceased publishing the scholarly apparatus as an integral part of the book. Nowadays, the indices, appendices, bibliographies, etc., are just as likely to be included on a CD-ROM in a pocket inside the book, or made available via a website.
This poses some interesting questions. If scholars add such books to their private libraries, what happens when they no longer are able to access the CD-ROMs due to changes in technology? What if the websites containing such apparatus blink out of existence?
Using the indices might become a bit problematical. Ditto the bibliographies. Ditto the appendices.
It would be a pretty piece of irony if future scholars find books published decades ago, in which the scholarly apparatus was an integral part of the book, more useful than today's hybrids....
We wanted to share the exciting news that one of our writers, Ellen Firsching Brown, has been awarded two honors for work published in Fine Books. Virginia Press Women awarded Brown first place in its Web/News Article category for her piece Swann Song: A Last Hurrah for the Ritter Collection of Art Books from our June 2009 digital edition. She was also given a third place prize in the Web/Feature category for her interview with collector Peter Strauss from February 2009. As a first-place winner, Brown will now advance to the National Federation of Press Women contest.
Ellen is currently working on her first book, Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller's Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood, which will be published by Taylor Trade in 2011. Congratulations, Ellen, and good luck!
Ellen is currently working on her first book, Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller's Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood, which will be published by Taylor Trade in 2011. Congratulations, Ellen, and good luck!
It seems like the Morgan just re-opened after its extensive face-lift. And now here's a story in today's New York Times about the Morgan's upcoming $4.5 million restoration of the McKim portion of the building, which houses Morgan's original library, pictured here, and office. As one who loved the 'old' Morgan's fustiness, I'm wary of more restoration. At least the director says it will be a "noninvasive restoration."
A few days ago it was reported in the New York Times that Verizon has asked regulators if they can mail hard copies of the White Pages in New York and New Jersey only to those who 'opt in.' Likening the printed directory to a "rotary-dialed phone," the NYT reports that the White Pages are viewed as obsolete in the digital age. (Paul Collins took up this topic in Slate in 2008, and his recent blog post alerted me to this interesting new development.)
Of course, what becomes rare or obsolete also becomes collectible. Gwillim Law's website Old Telephone Books is a treasure trove of information about antique phone directories. How does he feel about the Verizon news? "It would probably be good for sales of old telephone books if directories went all-electronic. That would boost the interest of the numerous people with telephone nostalgia. When people realize that something is not going to be around much longer, some of them develop an interest in holding on to it," he wrote by email.
Law also pointed out that the regulators may reject the petition, as they did in North Carolina (where Law resides). It has passed in several other states.
Of course, what becomes rare or obsolete also becomes collectible. Gwillim Law's website Old Telephone Books is a treasure trove of information about antique phone directories. How does he feel about the Verizon news? "It would probably be good for sales of old telephone books if directories went all-electronic. That would boost the interest of the numerous people with telephone nostalgia. When people realize that something is not going to be around much longer, some of them develop an interest in holding on to it," he wrote by email.
Law also pointed out that the regulators may reject the petition, as they did in North Carolina (where Law resides). It has passed in several other states.
Courtney Cunningham, with her Great collection.
Sweet Briar College in Virginia announced the winners of its Nicole Basbanes Student Book Collecting Contest (Sweet Briar alumna Nicole is the daughter of author and FB&C columnist Nick Basbanes, as well as a special collections librarian.) Courtney Cunningham, a classics major, won $300 for her collection of approximately 40 Alexander the Great books. As the first-place winner, she will proceed to the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest. Congratulations!
Have you actually read all the books in your personal library? 90% of them? 50%? Have you read any of them?
Some collectors don't add any books to their private library unless (1) they already have read the book or (2) they intend to read the book. But not everyone collects books for their informational content. Some folks are interested primarily in the bindings, or the illustrations, or the typography...reading often is neither anticipated nor required.
Even folks who collect books for their informational content often find that their intentions to read fail to keep pace with their urges to acquire. What I wonder, though, is this: if reading the books that one collects is important to one's book collecting endeavors, what happens to such endeavors if one's ability or capacity to read begins to rapidly diminish?
I am not concerned about just any type of reading, but specifically the deep reading that Birkerts (Gutenberg Elegies, 1994) suggested is demanded by works like traditional literary fiction. Has the infoglut of our modern age, which rewards infosurfing instead of sustained, concentrated engagement with an often complex text, made it more difficult for you to read deeply?
When was the last time that you read for pleasure a long, complex book?
Did such reading require a more deliberate, concentrated effort that in times past (i.e., did goings-on outside the pages of your book easily distract you)?
If maintaining serious engagement with a long, complex book has become more difficult for you, has this difficulty had any impact on the type or number of books that you collect...?
Print your own. Time Magazine highlights London's Newspaper Club.
How does it work? From the piece...
In an era when traditional newspapers are hemorrhaging readers and staff as their revenues head south, the year-old Newspaper Club is proving there's still untapped demand for the medium -- just not in the traditional sense. The kinds of papers Newspaper Club's clientele tend to print include bloggers' fanzines, literary works, school journalism projects and wedding-day keepsakes. The company also has a growing list of corporate clients, including the BBC, Wired's U.K. edition and smoothie-maker Innocent Drinks. Newspaper Club isn't about the news or the content, explains co-founder Russell Davis, "it's about ink on paper."
Here's how it works: Gather the words, pictures and graphics you want to see in print. Then design your 12-page (minimum) tabloid-size paper -- either by using Newspaper Club's on-site layout tool and your own software and sending the result to the site as a PDF, or by letting the site's in-house designers do the job for you. Newspaper Club then arranges for a printer to handle your press run and ships the finished work to your door. "It's like hitting the print button [on a computer] in bulk," says Ben Hammersley, editor at large for Wired's U.K. edition, which used Newspaper Club to print 500 copies of a compendium of highlights from several issues of the magazine and then gave them away at two events it sponsored.
The Newspaper Club's formula is based on a dirty little secret in the newspaper business: the giant presses that pump out daily papers by the millions every morning or afternoon sit idle for most of the rest of the day. To fill their downtime, printing plants do small press runs at surprisingly affordable prices.
There are so many times I wished I had a bricks and mortar bookshop -- to interact with customers every day, to be able to play with displays of books, and to have the sense that I am, indeed, a real bookseller.
There are numerous reasons why that's not a practical thought at this stage in my life -- one of which is the fact that I want to be home after school and on weekends, when my kids are home, and not at a shop across town. Still, if I had a brick and mortar shop, I could also hang up beautiful posters about books, like this one, in the window:
Then I realize that my website
and this blog are a sort of virtual store. Pretend that you're walking
down the street (to your favorite bookseller, natch) and you see the
above poster in the window of her shop. 
I attended the California Rare Book School, held at UCLA each summer, two summers ago, taking the Books in the Far West course taught by Gary Kurutz of the California State Library (and, not coincidentally, author of the book California Calls You among others). I had a wonderful time and highly recommend it to collectors, booksellers, and librarians. I am already plotting how I can fit in another week away so I can return to Cal RBS. And, yes, some scholarships are available. Go for it!
See you in the stacks!
