Library
To filter through hundreds of articles, tick the boxes below
Search
ILAB Library - All You Need To Know About Rare Books and the Antiquarian Book Trade
-
[+] More Cataloguing Rare Books - May We Please Have Our Description Back?
Published since 07 Jun 2013I have an idea for something that might actually provide the protection that copyright alone does not. As you might expect, it involves, once again, the internet. If that is where the crimes are now being committed, that is where we should put our cops to work. What I have in mind is a descriptive bibliographic database where booksellers can publish all their copyrighted descriptions in a way that clearly establishes priority and ownership. It would be a public place where you can claim what is yours. But it would also be much more than that. If enough booksellers participated, an open searchable database of this nature would soon constitute a valuable bibliographic reference that collectors, librarians, students and scholars could use for all types of research. It would make a useful permanent resource out of information that is now mostly ephemeral.
-
[+] More Printed Matters: or why own books?
Published since 09 Apr 2013“Books? Why would I want to own a book? They take up space and gather dust, they're a pain to carry if I move; oh, and I can always get the text from the Internet ...” Well, at the moment, you often can; but it may not always work like that.
-
[+] More “Tweedledum and Tweedledee” – VAO President Dieter Tausch shares his new passion with us: Twitter
Published since 03 Apr 2013Everybody is doing it. And the very few who refuse to do so, are said to be “old-fashioned”. Tweets rule the world. Nowadays our perception and our means of communication are limited to 140 characters (blanks included). We make “friends” on Facebook and spread the news on Twitter. Dieter Tausch is President and chief of the tweets of the Austrian Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association (VAO). Since October 2012 he shares his thoughts on the rare book trade with us via Twitter. Here is his report.
-
[+] More PRESS RELEASE - ILAB Joins The Protest Against Amazon’s Bid to Control Top-Level Domain Names
Published since 13 Mar 2013Today, the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers has joined the numerous other organizations, such as the Authors Guild or the American Association of Publishers, objecting to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN’s) plan to sell top-level domains to private companies. Online retail giant Amazon has bid to be the exclusive custodian of .book, .author and .read domains.
ILAB President Tom Congalton believes that placing such generic names in private hands is a threat to equal access to free markets and a threat to the nearly 2,000 small businesses that are affiliated to the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers.« We have to play by the same rules », Tom Congalton said. « There is no reason why Amazon should get the exclusive rights to suffixes such as book, author or read, which are generic names any bookseller throughout the world should be allowed to use. »
The International League of Antiquarian Booksellers is a federation of 22 national associations of antiquarian booksellers representing nearly 2,000 booksellers in 34 countries on all continents. It was founded in 1947 and its main object is the co-ordination of all efforts and projects relating to the development and growth of the trade of antiquarian bookselling, thereby creating friendly relations between antiquarian booksellers throughout the world. It also strives to uphold and improve professional standards in the trade, to promote honourable conduct in business, and to contribute in various ways to a broader appreciation of the history and art of the book.Download file: 1045_ICANN Amazon pr.pdf -
[+] More Collecting the Physical Book in the Digital Age
Published since 30 Jan 2013I’m going to make some general comments about my experiences as a dealer buying and selling in the Internet/digital age today and offer some reflections on the past – over the thirty-five years that I’ve been in business. I won’t keep you in suspense any longer. The impact of the Internet and computer technology has been enormous on the rare book business. There are three basic things that we do in this profession: buy books, sell books, and research what we are buying in order to sell them. All have been greatly impacted by technology. Today everything that I acquire is researched online in regard to bibliographical information, as well as for pricing comparison by looking at other copies in the marketplace. This research plays a key role in deciding what to buy, what to pay for the book, and in determining a fair amount to price the book for sale. Of course a subscription to the online auction record database is essential.
-
[+] More viaLibri launches German version of its popular website for booklovers: vialibri.net
Published since 10 Dec 2012The world’s largest online marketplace for early, rare and out-of-print books is now available to German bibliophiles in their native language. When it started in 2006, viaLibri set itself apart from other similar sites by focusing on the more exacting needs of book collectors, librarians and bibliographic scholars. This important group of book buyers had always been frustrated by the limitations of existing websites that were built primarily as price comparison tools. Rejecting the prevailing assumption that online book buyers were only interested in cheap books, rather than rare or valuable ones, viaLibri built a powerful metasearch engine designed specifically to meet the needs of serious bibliophiles, and not just bargain hunters.
-
[+] More Buch Wien 2012: The Austrian Antiquarian Booksellers go Facebook, Twitter & Co.
Published since 22 Nov 2012Not at all antiquated: the Austrian Association of Antiquarian Booksellers (VAO) introduces its new website to the public at the book fair “Buch Wien 12” from 22nd to 25th November, 2012. The new website www.antiquare.at was developed in collaboration with the Hauptverband des österreichischen Buchhandels as well as with the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB) and is supposed to be an innovative platform for business, culture and book sciences in and out of Austria – a (virtual) space for networking, interaction and interdisciplinary exchange.
-
[+] More Dal manoscritto al libro elettronico: continuità, discontinuità, collezionismo e mercato
Published since 27 Jul 2012Cominciamo con l'affermare che anche il manoscritto è un libro, seppur prodotto con una tecnica diversa da quelle oggi più note (la scrittura manuale, che rende gli esemplari, anche se prodotti in serie, copie uniche), ma con una fisicità del tutto simile a quella del libro tipografico: forma, materiali e, in parte, paratesto, e premettiamo che non ci occupiamo se non di sfuggita del “supporto” fisico, che poi è la carta, senza la quale mai il libro sarebbe diventato un prodotto industriale (o proto-industriale), e che ha una sua, importante, storia, che in Europa comincia a partire circa dal XIII secolo. Quando apparve il primo libro a stampa, quasi nessuno capì la rivoluzionaria novità: esso infatti si rivolgeva allo stesso pubblico del manoscritto e si presentava allo stesso modo.
-
[+] More The Italian Antiquarian Booksellers' Association (ALAI) Launches a New Website
Published since 20 Jun 2012The Italian Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association (ALAI) is pleased to announce that the new ALAI website, entirely renewed in graphics and content, is now online. You are invited to have a look at all the new features it contains. The site's homepage includes a section dedicated to the associated booksellers' catalogs. The material that each member will upload (news, catalogs, photographs, videos, events), will then remain filed in the page dedicated to him, which can be regarded as a sort of small website reserved to a single member.
-
[+] More Online Bookselling before the Internet
Published since 13 Apr 2012Do you remember Abacis? It was one of the first attempts in the early days of the Internet to establish an online database for rare books. “Abacis started with five or six employees, which quickly grew to more than ten, six of whom were devoted to library and dealer sales. I worked in dealer sales and within six months I got over 200 dealers to sign up. However, many dealers said they would never get a computer or that they were happy with AB Bookman. Many told us that our idea would never work.” Ed Johnson remembers the good old times.
