Book Catalogues,
Tomorrow & Beyond

 Tuesday, January 22, 2008

 The Grolier Club
47 East 60th Street
New York, NY 10022
(212) 838-6690

 

As of Friday December 14 the Conference is fully subscribed, and no more places are available.

 In 1995 the Bibliographical Society of America sponsored an invitational conference at the Grolier Club entitled “Book Catalogues, Today & Tomorrow,” which discussed traditional printed book catalogues & their scholarly uses. This present conference will also address the dual impact in the past dozen years of the web & of digitization capabilities on provenance & other research using book catalogues. The morning session will be devoted to reports on projects, digitally grounded or otherwise, connected with traditional collections of printed catalogues. The remainder of the day will explore the gap that has developed since 1995 between the millions of books bought & sold solely on the web, & the dearth of information about those transactions, & the implications of that information gap  for future provenance & other research in the history of the book.

 Click here for a pdf of the announcement

Program

8 am – 8:45 am:

 Registration

 

Morning Sessions — Book Trade Catalogues: Collection and access

 

8:45 am:

Opening remarks by Eric Holzenberg (The Grolier Club)  
Please note that the conference will open at 8:45 am, not 9 am, as originally announced.

 

9 am – 10:30 am:

 Session I

William P. Barlow, Jr.  
On the private collecting of book catalogues.

 Giles Mandelbrote (The British Library)
Revising Pollard and Ehrman's The Distribution of Books by Catalogue: old and new techniques and some preliminary conclusions.

 Christian Coppens (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
A Census of Printers’ and Booksellers’ catalogues till 1600: some provisional conclusions

 

10:30 am – 11 am:

  Coffee break

 
11 am – 12:30 pm:

Session II 

Lawrence J. Schoenberg
On his database of manuscript sales.

 Deborah Kempe (Frick Art Reference Library)
On the SCIPIO book and art auction catalogue database.

 
12:30 pm – 2 pm:

Lunch (on your own)

 

Afternoon Session — Provenance Research and Book Trade Catalogues in the Internet Age: Opportunities and Challenges

 
2 pm – 4 pm:

Session III

Maria Hutchison (ABEbooks.com)
On ABE's catalogue and historical transaction data

 David Szewczyk (Philadelphia Rare Books and Manuscripts Company)
On the state of debate at ABAA concerning access to online book sale transactions.

G. Thomas Tanselle
Concluding remarks

 
The afternoon session will end in time for participants to travel to Columbia University for the annual Book Arts Lecture and reception.  
 

Support for this conference was provided by:

The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America

  • Mid-Atlantic Chapter

  • Elisabeth Woodburn Educational Fund

Anonymous private donations        


Questions? Contact Eric Holzenberg

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