Bibliomania: Stories from Inside and Outside the Book Conference Details
The Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand annual conference 2024 will focus on the theme of the stories behind the book, including:
- the book as object
- book production and bindings
- book collectors and collections
- booksellers and bookselling
- users and readers of books and the evidence of those activities
- the afterlives of books: circulation, distribution and dispersal
- preservation and conservation of books
- areas relating more broadly to bibliography and book history
The Society, which promotes research in physical and textual bibliography and the history of the written word, is now making a call for papers for the conference entitled Bibliomania: Stories from Inside and Outside the Book. It will take place December 4-5 at the National Library of Australia, Canberra, with a Rare Books Librarians Day on December 6, for those working with rare books collections.
"Mass-printed or bespoke, digital or physical, books convey information," say the organisers. "They are also objects with stories to tell beyond their text, particularly in their physical form. Inside and outside, they carry traces of those stories. They may tell us about the people and technologies that made them, or the people whose hands they have passed through. They take on lives of their own."
The conference will be held in-person and sessions will be recorded for upload to the BSANZ YouTube channel. Keynote speakers are to be confirmed.
