Of Rare Books, Emerging Technology, and Social Networking...

There is a well-known curse, "may you live in interesting times". For the rare book world, times have seldom been more interesting (and here I speak only of the book trade, though the worlds of librarians, archivists, curators, etc have been similarly afflicted). The book trade has seen the death of book arbitrage, regional scarcity, and several of our beloved journals/institutions...we have seen a radical shift in the previously rather caste system of dealers and the emergence of a vast class of hobbyist "dealers"...we are in the midst of a radical shift from how the trade used to function to a newer-if not better, different-state of being (e.g. open shops dropping off droves, print catalogues becoming less common, the emergence of other venues for data transfer, etc).

At the same time, there are some really interesting elements emerging. As we seem to be losing one of the *critical* venues for the transfer of bibliophilic passion...the open shop...other venues finally seem to be emerging. The lose of the open shop has been worrying me a great deal for, as one who hopes to be wandering the stacks for many decades, I've been worried where the next generation (or two...or three) will be bitten by the biblio-bug. The primary petri dish has historically been open shops...you could go and hang out...handle books...talk with the owner(s) and similarly afflicted. You had a place you could *be* where you could handle books, listen, and learn. The loss of open shops has meant, in a real way, the loss of one of the primary gateway drugs that hook those so inclined and lead to more sophisticated distractions.

We are finally beginning to see some interesting and potentially important alternatives. As social networking sites have come into their own, we are seeing vibrant bibliophilic communities emerge. Facebook has dozens and dozen of Pages and Groups dedicated to authors, specific books, broad genres, periods, booksellers, printing, binding, etc. (Lux Mentis can be found here). Twitter has vibrant communities of librarians, booksellers, book lovers and, well, any number of other interest areas (Lux Mentis can be found here). Even "business networking" focused LinkedIn has interesting bibliophilic groups emerging (I can be found here). There is also the rather brilliant LibraryThing, a social networking site for booklovers where, among other things, you can post your collections, find others with similar interests and engage in any number of other distractions (I can be found here).

As one who spends a lot of time thinking about and exploring how to find/reach/engage the next generation of collector, I've spent a lot of time exploring these venues and am beginning to be pleased with what I'm finding. I've had dozens of "first contacts" by young (in the collecting arch, if not chronologically) collectors, asking interesting, engaged and/or curiosity questions and established collectors/clients tell me how much they enjoy the sense of community and ease of contact.

Several years ago, I had the pleasure of leveraging modern technology in an interesting way in the sale of a collection of Sommerset Maughan photographs. Not long ago, I'd have had to pack them off to the California dealer who I knew had a sophisticated collector of such material and then wait for him to be available and view the collection. Instead, she and I had an iSight based video conference...I held up each of the 110 photos, she did a screen capture of each one and threw them up on a unique webpage of thumbnail images. She then emailed her client a note saying she had something she thought he'd find interesting with the link to the page. He viewed it and responded very quickly that he wanted it all. From start to finish, it was about 24 hours...a wonderful improvement over the weeks or months it might have taken not that long ago.

Much more recently, I received a Twitter "Direct Message" (a message to a specific recipient that others can not see, as opposed to the norm that can be seen by the world). It was from someone I had never met, but "Followed" on Twitter as he did me (me, because he was clever, witty and posted consistently interesting things; he, because he clearly had too much time on his hands). It turns out he is a lit scholar and an extremely interesting gentleman. It also turned out he was assisting in placing a remarkable "lost" archive of the personal papers and manuscripts of Montague Summers (the full story has recently been published in the Antigonish Review). His DM, completely out of the blue, was to ask if I might be able to assist in placing the collection. One thing led to another, and I am very pleased to say that the archive is currently with me, being catalogued and prepared for, most likely, institutional placement.

While the scope and significance of the Summers collection is wonderful and far and away the important element of the transaction...the fact that I would *never* have had it *except* for Twitter is, I think, a fascinating element. It is a sign that new meeting places are beginning to gel and evolve into important forums for the trade (as seller, collector and/or dealer). The key, of course, is that it is not enough to simply hang a virtual sign...the onus is on you (collector or dealer) to connect. To talk. To post. To engage.

Interesting times, indeed.

If you are not completely appalled...

you are not paying attention. One of my more favorite quotations and an apt slogan on a political T-Shirt. It is captured, as such, in Judy Seigel's "[Read My T-Shirt] for President... a true history of the political front - and back."

Meeting and chatting...at length...with Judy was one of the better bits of the NY fair I attended last weekend. A photographer, writer and the founding editor of the "leading alternative photography journal", I do not think I am understating it when I say she is a force of nature.. We ended up talking a bit of politics and she told me about the book she had written on the t-shirt politics of the Bush years. I told her I would have to track a copy down as such things amuse me. She said not to worry about it. I just received not one but two copies in the post...signed even. I haven't had time to read it, but have flipped through for some favorites and all are there save one. I predict I will have good fun looking at these with the boys in a few years.
[there should be an image of the cover, but blogger seem disinclined to import images at the moment...I'll try to update later.]

Day one in Boston (MARIAB)...

Wow! Day one was just great. The promoter has clearly done a great job with this show. There was a *big* crowd waiting to get in and it was pretty steady all day long. It was 330 in the afternoon before I remembered to have lunch.

Joyce from Brattle Books (great books, bags, peanut M&Ms and just generally nice to share a booth border with) watched the booth while Eli and I went off for a quick and good lunch right on the pier (and, hypothetically, a cherry Slurpee on the way back to the show).

I saw a fair number of old friends...other dealers and "real humans" and, as mentioned, we really did have pretty steady traffic in the booth all day long. There are not many shows you can say that about and it was a nice treat today. With luck, tomorrow will be more of the same.

We sold some good books today...shockingly, only one sale was to a dealer. It is a really nice day when you have a good number of sales and the vast majority are to real humans. We've also had a lot of people say really nice things to us today, about the booth, books and boy *laughing*.

Images show the booth before set-up. There are pretty nice "right view" and "left view" of the booth. My assistant...he of "I really don't like these long ties, could you get me a bow tie, they're cool" was wonderful pretty much all day...going between playing with some actions figures/game boy and offering cards and book advice to customers. Also, Eli is-clearly-at least as excited about my recent ABAA membership as I am. He proudly tells people about this (in the booth, at restaurants, checking into the hotel, etc) and is quite convinced that he is a "half member" due to his status as Thing Two (perhaps his brother has the other half).

The last shot is strait downt he middle of the aisle at about 2pm....pretty typical of the day.

Tomorrow starts at 10am...I am the seminar speaker for the 2ish pm seminar. It should be fun, though I hate having to leave my booth abandoned (though watched) during a chunk of the "wind down" before show end. Oh well. Then break down starting at 5pm and home. Most likely no update until Monday. We shall see.

Day Two, Pack out and my favorite book pairing of the weekend

Day Two started for me at The Morgan (see next post). Suzanne (wo)manned the booth alone for the first time and did a masterful job. She even sold something whilst I was wandering about.

I made it back to the Huntington College site by about 11am and found it reasonably busy. It has just occurred to me that I have not mentioned the most interesting aspect of the Hunter College venue. It is a gym complex...buried THREE STORIES UNDERGROUND. We were so deep underground that there was no cell coverage. We were, effectively, in a dungeon. A very nice, roomy, carpeted dungeon...with champagne...and good books. The only downside is that there were apparently some reasonably strict rules about signage...so it was a little hard to find from the outside...but there were "show staff" at every turn to help shepherd the cats down the various escalators.

There was more champagne in the afternoon and a nice, steady flow of people until the show closed...not huge numbers, but steady and engaged. Two of my favorite new clients showed up, which pretty much made my weekend....young, focused and really just all together too much fun. I pretty much always love what I do...sometimes I love it even more...they just made my day.

Credit where it is due department: I was hoping to be able to make it off the waiting list and be able to do the Armory show as my first ABAA event...though I knew the likelihood was very slim (and, as it turned out, impossible). We had more or less decided that we would just come down for the weekend and shop both shows and visit and try to get a better feel for the proverbial landscape. More or less at the last minute, we decided to take a single case at Bruce and D's show and bring a small amount of really nice material...mainly because it was just such a great location, a block and a half from the Armory (and 3.5 stories down). Logistically, it was a very difficult venue (60ish dealers, two elevators, a loading bay that holds about 3ish vehicles and a rather narrow street). D arranged for valet parking (so you could take your material in and your car would just disappear at the garage rate), great porters and just generally had things running so smoothly and efficiently that it seemed effortless...not small feat given the complexity and number of moving parts. There was carpet covering the gym floor, all the tables were draped, there was food and drink (snacks and a boxed lunch) during set up and problems, when they arose, were resolved quickly and with apparent ease. It was a great show, extremely well run and we are very pleased we decided to roll the dice on it.

Also making my day was Susan Weiser Liebegott of Enchanted Books fame. I stopped by her always lovely booth to see what she brought with her and just to say hi and chat. Centered in her lit case, on the bottom shelf, surrounded by her dozens of wonderful children's' books was a lovely of "Pose Please" in the original box. This, by itself, would amuse me....the naked woman frolicking among the children's books. What pushed it completely over the top, and Susan *swears* it was unintentional, is her placement at the bottom left of a lovely copy of "Somebody's Pussies" (click on the image to blow it up). I tried to convince her that moving the copy of "Wee Willie Winkie" and other appropriately tawdry titles around "Pose Please" would be great fun but Susan is a much more proper and presentable human than I (and much the better for it). [N.B. She did give me permission to post this wonderfully prurient image.]

I spent a fair bit of time at the Armory and did find several good thing to pick up for stock and clients. This weekend in NY is unlike any other for a book lover. There is simply no other place where you can see so much, from so many genres, in one place. I feel badly for those who loose their ability to be taken aback from the sheer volume and scope of what can be seen and examined at these shows.

Why I love my clients: Reason 347

I just received a check from a client on the west coast in a big envelope. Why the big envelope you ask...to hold the lovely bag of nuts and such she sent. Money and a nice snack. Life is good.