Tag Archives: bookselling

CALRBS, One Man’s Experience

It’s been said that old dawgs can’t learn new tricks. Well, this old dawg thought maybe he could, for despite having been in the antiquarian book trade for 3+ decades, in the hopes of learning something new, the week of August 7th, I attended the CALRBS course, PostModern Bookselling, taught by my friends & ABAA colleagues, Brad & Jen Johnson, principals in the firm, Johnson Rare Books & Archives, Covina, CA.

For those not familiar with CALRBS, the courses are taught on the lovely UCLA campus, with the classes [mainly] held in the SE&IS building on the north end, right next to the Young library. While the UCLA Guest House is close by, I chose to stay at the Tiverton, at the South end of campus, close to Westwood. It made for a nice to/from walk every day… you know, “Get your steps in”.

As with most classes of this nature, the week began with a welcome brunch hosted by Director Robert Montoya, providing all attendees there for the week [CALRBS hosted 3 other classes that week] the opportunity to meet staff & fellow attendees, followed by each class heading to their respective class room. So the 8 of us gathered in room 101, and began the week together with personal introductions… we were a rather diverse group, though as you might imagine, the majority were booksellers in some fashion or form, ranging from relative newbies, to this old dawg of 34 years standing.

Brad & Jen’s plan for the course was to demonstrate to the class that the trade has evolved from what it was just a few decades ago… that PostModern booksellers should recognize that material other than just books is worth their time & energy, and they used their personal success as an example of what is possible. For those that don’t know, Johnson Rare Books & Archives has enjoyed considerable prosperity by focusing on archives, telling the story of under-represented communities & those outside the mainstream of literary pedagogy. Further, they emphasized the practice of active bookselling [reach out to possible customers] vs that of a passive nature [e.g., list your books on ABE, and wait for a buyer].

But what about specifics of the week you ask? To the Johnson’s credit, they brought in [some by Zoom] experts from many walks of the trade & book world… To start, Monday afternoon, Kevin Johnson, principal of Royal Books & author of The CELLULOID PAPER TRAIL, led a session on movie scripts, their history, identification, etc. Fascinating! We spent Tuesday morning with Russell Johnson, UCLA Curator of the History of Medicine. For those that know Russell, you know he’s a very generous individual, and a true friend of the trade. He showed us a number of usable treasures he’s procured over the decades he’s been in his position. And Tuesday afternoon was devoted to “Born Digital”, a Zoom presentation by Will Hansen, Newberry Library, followed by buying at auctions, another Zoom session, with Joe Fay, McBride Rare Books [and one who spent a number of years with Heritage auctions, so he had intimate inside knowledge of that about which he spoke].

Wednesday was spent on a field trip to Covina, where Brad & Jen had closed their shop for the day, in order to give the class the run of it, as well as show us some projects currently in the works… perhaps most impressive was a recently acquired consignment, a binding collection of some repute [Morris-Levin anyone?], though some were taken by Brad’s archive-in-the-building, nudist camp literature [feel free to quote him material]. But perhaps the high point of the day was lunch at Brad & Jen’s go-to place, Casa Moreno. Good food, generous portions, great company! After lunch, we traipsed over to Pasadena to visit “Paper Village”, a site where a number of pickers store their finds. What a fun afternoon! I even bought a bunch of books [which Brad kindly agreed to ship back to Reno for me].

Thursday was another busy day, with 4 areas covered: “Working with Institutions”, led by Greg Williams, Special Collections Librarian for CSU Domingo Hills. “Introduction to Appraisals” by James Goldwasser, Locus Souls Rare Books. “Research Strategies for Non-Traditional Materials”, Kate Mitas, Bookseller [by Zoom]. “Non-Traditional Approaches to Photography”, Kent Tschanz, Tschanz Rare Books. While all were quite good, and James taught me a few things about appraisals I didn’t realize [or forgot], I confess, I have to give a nod to Kent as my favorite, for his enthusiasm for the subject was nothing short of infectious. I’m only sorry he didn’t have another hour or two, for he showed some truly magnificent images to the class, though many were given short shrift, or skipped altogether, due to time constraints.
While not originally part of the class schedule, fortuitously, the LA Art Book Fair had its opening night that night. We all went. The crowds, of mostly young folks, was nothing short of amazing. And two of our class [Miranda & Laurelin, Amortia Fine Art Books] had a stand! We all hoped they killed it! After, dinner at a local restaurant, Manuela DTLA, fabulous of course!

Friday, our last day, but certainly not our least. It began with a Zoom session featuring colleague Andrew Gaub, Bruce McKittrick Rare Books. McKittrick Rare Books focuses solely on books from the hand-press period, and Andrew spoke on how to market & sell antiquarian books in the 21st century. Suffice it to say, despite the week’s bias toward non-traditional materials, Andrew makes a credible living selling ‘olde’ books. The next session was with two local LA librarians, Dalena Hunter & Lizeth Ramirez, who discussed the collecting of under-represented communities. And while their focus is LA, the precepts they shared can be applied to any locale. Finally, class concluded with a “Non-Traditional Materials Workshop”, where each of us was to ‘pick & catalogue’ an item supplied by Brad & Jen. Mine was a photo album & letter archive Brad had just purchased just the Sunday prior at the Pasadena flea market! Since it may soon be on the market, I won’t say too much more, other than that guy sure has an eye for great material!

The official week ended with a mixer at the Young library, typical cheese cubes & white wine, but long on new friends saying their goodbyes. It was sad to see the week end, but hey, next year brings another schedule of classes, so perhaps I’ll see you in LA the summer of 2024?

Archival Cataloguing for Booksellers, Part II

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By Kate Mitas

Getting to Know Your Archive

Now that you know your archive is about, say, Alaskan beauty pageant contestants or Italian motor scooters (to use two of Lorne Bair’s examples from the last blog in this series), it’s time to write up a snazzy description and send the archive out into the world, right?

Well, no.

As with anything else, first impressions can carry a lot of weight, but they exist to be refined, deepened, and, in some cases, overturned completely by later information. This is especially important to keep in mind when you’re dealing with archives: unlike books, whose (expected) contents are often already known by your customer and documented in bibliographical references, archives, in a sense, don’t really exist until they’re catalogued. Cataloguing an archive defines, as well as describes, its contents for a potential customer. That’s part of what makes archives so exciting to work with, but it also increases the risk of misleading your client (and/or yourself) by imposing a narrative, rather than letting the narrative be dictated by the material.

Physical Content

First things first, to borrow from Brian Cassidy’s oft-repeated maxim at CABS: Look. At. The. Archive.

An archive in progress — stay tuned!

It can be easy to skip over an archive’s physical content and dive right into those letters, or diaries, or photographs — after all, that’s the fun part, when you get to read on the job(!), hunt for clues, do research, and, in general, be utterly and exquisitely nerdy. In contrast, cataloguing the physical content of an archive is tedious, sometimes mind-numbingly so: you count the different things in the archive, and you figure out what they’re made of and how big they are, and, if you’re like me, you also probably recount something at least once, because the phone rang in the middle and you want to make absolutely sure you’ve gotten it right. So what’s the big deal about physical content?

Put simply: everything in an archive is a function of its physical content. It’s impossible to draw accurate conclusions about an archive’s intellectual content without knowing its actual composition, and, consequently, to determine a commercial value based on those factors. (Note the qualifiers, here. Sometimes it’s far more practical to slap a price on a minimally-catalogued archive and send it on to another bookseller who knows more about the subject. More on this later.)

Take those photographs of Alaskan beauty pageant contestants, for example. They might be the most interesting subsection of Alaskan life you’ve ever seen, but what if they’re real photo postcards instead of photographs, issued as souvenirs at an annual fair in downtown Anchorage? Or worse, half-tone reproductions? Conversely, what if your Alaskan pageant contestants are only in ten photographs in an album of 300, all featuring contestants at beauty pageants held around the country during a 20 year period (which would be a pretty kick-ass archive, by the way)? And what if those ten Alaskans are scattered throughout the album, rather than grouped together?

You get my point: establishing an archive’s physical content is a way of applying quantifiers to aspects of valuation like rarity and significance, as well as forcing you to reconcile the parts of an archive you found interesting (Alaskan beauty pageant contestants) with the likely intent of the person who formed the archive (beauty pageant contestants). It’s a way of grounding your enthusiasm and, ultimately, making you focus on what an archive actually is, rather than what you might want it to be.

Not everyone includes the same amount and kinds of information when describing an archive’s physical contents. Nevertheless, here is a list of general factors that we include at Tavistock, and which I’ve found to be helpful:

For textual material:

number of pages and size of leaves
if unique, whether the material is manuscript and/or typescript
if manuscript, overall legibility
if printed, whether professionally or not
estimated word count (of manuscript/typescript material)

For photographic/visual material:

number and type of photographs/images, with a breakdown by category
photographic process*
color, black and white, etc.?
professional vs amateur

This list is far from complete, of course — you’ll note there’s nothing here about film, for example, since we almost never handle it — but these attributes are a good place to start when determining the physical content of most textual and photographic archives from the mid-20th century and earlier.

* For a good reference on how to distinguish the type of photographic process used, with a handy fold-out chart for identification, we recommend James Reilly’s Care and Identification of 19th Century Photographic Prints.

Next up in the series: Intellectual Content and Research Methods

Come to Pasadena, for There You’ll See…

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We are exhibiting at the Pasadena ABAA Fair! If you have a chance to come check out Booth 418 while you’re there (February 12th-14th at the Pasadena Convention Center), here are some of the goodies you can hope to find. See anything else on our site you’d be interested in perusing? Shoot us an email! We’d be happy to bring it down just for you.

Check out this 1st edition, inscribed copy of Clara Barton’s “Story of My Childhood” – published in 1907. Now housed in a custom red quarter-leather slipcase with marbled paper boards… As Barton is perhaps the most well-known nurse in American nursing history (organizing the American Red Cross and all), this is a must-have for any nursing collection! See it here>

An attractive, Near Fine set of Forster’s “The Life of Charles Dickens” – all first editions! Published between 1872 and 1874 by Chapman & Hall, these volumes are beautifully set in early 20th century three-quarter green morocco bindings and green cloth boards. Love Dickens? Look no further than here>

For the celebrity groupie in the Southern California crowd… we have a scarce cookery book published in 1936. “Favorite Recipes of Famous People” contains favorite recipes of, according to its compiler Felix Mendelsohn, “famous chefs and maitres, by stage folk and screen stars, by newspaper men, columnists, opera stars, musicians and leading household economists, in fact by glamorous personalities in every walk of life.” This cookery book only shows 4 holdings on OCLC! Get it while it’s hot>

A book fair wouldn’t be complete without a little bit of library history! Have you seen our Catalogue of the Milford Library yet? This is a rare 19th C. catalogue from this small-town free library, formed in 1868. OCLC records no holdings of this edition (can you say “Score”?), noting only a sole holding of the library’s 1870 catalogue. The 3 page introduction provides a succinct history of earlier attempts at establishing local lending-library societies, etc. Interested? It is available to see here>

This Hardy Boys title, “The Short-Wave Mystery”, number 24 in the series, is in, according to Carpentieri’s reference, it’s “most collectible” format. This 3rd printing of the title has a frontis by Russell H. Tandy and is bound in maroon cloth with black topstain and pictorial endpapers. Colorful pictorial Dust Jacket is included! Are you a collector of children’s series books? Contact us – we can bring many! See “The Short-Wave Mystery” here>

Who doesn’t love a good restaurant menu? Especially one where a big-mouth bass tells you to eat him! Check out this menu from New York’s McGinnis of Sheepshead Bay – “The Roast Beef King” (but also “Famous for Sea Food”). In 1943, a Roast Beef, Spinach and Mashed Potato dinner cost $1.45. Oh, the good old days… Drool & giggle here>

And last but not least – our Fine Printing item! This broadside is a 1934 printing from San Francisco’s Grabhorn Press – one of only 100 copies. “To Albert Bender – Saint Patrick’s Night 1934” was written by Ella Young to Albert Maurice Bender, and has a woodcut headpiece by Valenti Angelo at the top. See it here!

The Antiquarian Book World in 2016

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Woohoo! It is almost 2016 and have you got a whirlwind year ahead of you! Interested in Book Fairs? Book events? Bibliophiles in general? The Antiquarian Book World has got you covered. Check out the most pressing book events (mainly CA or ABAA related) in early 2016 below!

January:

Now until January 10th: If you haven’t caught it already, you have a few days left! The California Historical Society has hosted their current exhibition “City Rising: San Francisco and the 1915 World’s Fair” since January of 2015, and the closing day is January 10th of 2016! Get a viewing in while you still can… take it from someone who has seen the exhibition – it’s worth it! http://www.californiahistoricalsociety.org/exhibitions/current_exhibitions/

January 9th & 10th: Greater Los Angeles Postcard & Paper Show – Glendale California. http://www.postcardshows.com/Glendale.php

January 25th (to April 25th): New exhibition at the Book Club of California in San Francisco! If you have never attended an exhibition at this prestigious club or thought of joining the ranks, you are missing out! The BCC hosts lovely and interesting functions and surely their new exhibition “Calligraphy and Poetry” is sure to impress! http://www.bccbooks.org/

February:

February 5th & 6th: San Francisco Book, Print & Paper Fair at the San Mateo County Event Center – San Mateo, California! This fair is close to our lovely shop… Just a ferry ride (or a long swim… just kidding you can also drive here) away! Please feel free to make an appointment and come see us when you’re around for the fair! http://www.sfbookandpaperfair.com/

February 12th, 13th & 14th: The California International Antiquarian Book Fair (ABAA) – Pasadena, California. For those who don’t know, each year the ABAA oscillates between hosting the California ABAA Fair in Pasadena or the Bay Area. This year is Pasadena’s turn! Come down and show your support for the packed show of local, North American & International Booksellers! We’ll be there – even more a reason to come! http://cabookfair.com/index.php

March:

March 11th, 12th & 13th: Florida Antiquarian Book Fair – St. Petersburg, FL. I have to plug this one because not only has Vic exhibited at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair before, but it is my home state! Don’t worry, alligators are more scared of you than you are of them… http://floridabooksellers.com/

The Sacramento Antiquarian Book Fair

March 19th: Sacramento Antiquarian Book Fair. This one is a must! For those of you who have never been to a book fair, this is a great starting fair to attend. Lots of local booksellers, fun-loving bibliophiles and sunshine… what more could you ask for? Read our past blogs on this fair to hear what it’s all about, then come and visit us! http://www.sacbookfair.com/

April (We like to call it… Bookselling in a New York Minute):

April 7th, 8th, 9th & 10th: The ABAA New York Antiquarian Book Fair – Park Avenue, NY. Always a beautiful venue to behold, this fair boasts booksellers and book-lovers from all over the world, and never fails to deliver a spectacular event! Don’t believe us? We wouldn’t lie to you! http://www.nyantiquarianbookfair.com/

April 9th: The Manhattan Vintage Book & Ephemera Fair / The Fine Press Book Fair – Lexington Ave, NY. One of the greatest things about the NY book fair are the numerous “shadow” fairs that go along with the ABAA’s shindig… check them out! You won’t be disappointed. http://www.flamingoeventz.com/ http://www.fpba.com/fairs/newyork.html

April 9th: The New York City Book & Ephemera Fair. Again… how many fairs do you need to have happening before you agree to go to New York and have your fill of antiquarian books?! I believe “Shop till you Drop” is the phrase needed here! http://www.antiqueandbookshows.com/

To find out more throughout the year, visit:

www.bookfairs.com or the ABAA list of events at www.abaa.org/events/ to find more to explore!

Braving Rush Hour to Feed my Holiday Bibliophilia

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By Margueritte Peterson

Click, clack, click, clack… are these the sounds of the keys on my keyboard puncturing this blank document with letters as I write this? Maybe. Was it also the sound my heels made as they climbed the steps of the Berkeley City Club last night for the annual holiday dinner & raffle of the Northern California Chapter of the ABAA? Most definitely. That’s right, ladies and gents! Another year has passed us by and last night saw the usual cast of characters (minus a few) sharing cocktails, laughs and bottles of Single Malt Scotch Whiskey (for the raffle, of course… we aren’t alcoholics!) at a beautiful local venue.

Michael Hackenberg and his Raffle Surprise!

The night started out promising enough, as Kate Mitas, Vic’s Aide-de-Camp, and I braved rush-hour East Bay traffic for over half an hour to get to Durant Avenue. We then parked in a lot I know well only to be accosted for $8 by what I originally assumed was a homeless person trying to make a buck (not a bad idea, when you think about it). A glass of red wine later and we were sitting at the back table, watching booksellers all around us enjoy an evening with friends, spouses and colleagues. Michael Hackenberg, Chair of the NCC, hustled all (rather well, I might add, as only Michael can do) for the purchase of raffle tickets, and then introduced the new board of the NCC. Himself returning as Chair and Steve Blackmer continuing on as Treasurer, we have the honor of welcoming two new members to the board! Scott Brown of Eureka Books joins as Vice Chair and Alexander Akin of Bolerium Books as Secretary.

After hearing from the current Chair and Steve as Treasurer, current Vice Chair Vic Zoschak gave some words on some recent goings-on in the ABAA. One of which was this – at the recent Boston ABAA fair, the ABAA partnered with RBS to offer an educational seminar. It was attended by 44 people in all, 9 of which were booksellers (3 from Northern California alone!). The session was opened by intrepid president of the ABAA Tom Goldwasser and President of RBS, Michael Suarez. The seminar was very successful and there are hopes that it will be repeated in the future!

Missing out on eggplant!

After hearing from all parties, the meal continued! While a couple of us from Tavistock Books enjoyed a delicious roasted eggplant & polenta dinner (and another at Tavistock Books deemed it an alien life form and ate his usual salmon dinner), we exchanged pleasant dinner conversation with Rachel Eley, an associate at John Windle Antiquarian Bookseller (and an Associate Member of the ABAA herself) and her colleague Annika Green. As desert appeared on the tables I was suddenly thrust into the position of raffle item presenter (thanks a heap, Vic), and decided then and there that I should probably never apply for a position on a game show, no matter how low on cash I am! (I don’t think that game show hosts like it when the raffle presenter holds a bottle and when asked what it is retorts with “…it’s alcohol…”). In any event, the raffle each year is held to benefit the Elisabeth Woodburn Educational Fund which provides educational scholarships to booksellers (a great opportunity, of which a handful of booksellers in Northern California have been able to take advantage of to further their knowledge of the bookselling world!).

All in all, it was a pretty tame evening (compared to some other bookseller events I have been to over the last few years) but any night with books, wine and bibliophilia is a great night in our eyes! The holiday season has now officially begun!

Yours truly, Vic Zoschak & Kate Mitas of Tavistock Books!