The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress and Columbia University's Rare Book and Manuscript Library will sponsor a symposium on Oct. 3-5 at Columbia on the topic of publishing archives.
According to John Y. Cole, director of the Center for the Book, and Jean Ashton, director of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the symposium "will discuss ways that the changing marketplace and technological environment are affecting the value and use of publisher's archives as primary source materials."
Major topics include new formats for publishing archives, intellectual property issues, changing patterns of collecting and use, new ways of exchanging information about publishing, relations among librarians and publishers and trends in documenting the publishing process. There also will be a presentation about a survey of 20th century American publishers' archives, undertaken for the Book Industry Study Group by Arizona State University's Scholarly Publishing Program.
The symposium is open to the public. It begins with a dinner (charge: $40) on the Columbia University campus on Oct. 3 and concludes with a workshop on Oct. 5. For reservations and further information, write Publishing Archives Symposium, Center for the Book, Library of Congress, Washington, DC 20540-4920.
Current Research about Books and Publishing. The Book Industry Study Group (BISG), sponsor of the publishing archives survey that will be presented at the Oct. 3-5 Center for the Book/Columbia University symposium, is a not-for-profit organization that sponsors and encourages research about print and electronic publishing. Two BISG-sponsored committees, Book Industry Systems Advisory Committee and Serials Industry Systems Advisory Committee, set the standards and write the procedures for the electronic flow of information within the industry. More than 200 organizations belong to BISG, which is a reading promotion partner of Center for the Book.
Member organizations include the principal segments of the industry: publishers, wholesalers, manufacturers, retailers, printers, binders, paper suppliers, multimedia developers, librarians, book sellers and trade associations. They receive a variety of BISG publications that report statistics and research results, including the annuals Book Industry Trends and the Consumer Research Study on Book Publishing. For more information about BISG, its publications and membership categories, contact Sandra K. Paul, Book Industry Study Group, 160 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010-7000, telephone (212) 929-1393, fax (212) 989-7542, e-mail 4164812 @mcimail.com.
Voting members of BISG also receive Publishing Research Quarterly, which publishes scholarly articles, reports of significant research and research methods, review articles, surveys and essays "that contribute to knowledge about how publishing industries operate." Article and research submissions should be sent to the editor, Albert Henderson, P.O. Box 2423, Bridgeport, CN 06608-0423. For subscription orders and information, contact Publishing Research Quarterly, Department 4010, Transaction Periodicals Consortium, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08903, telephone (908) 445-2280.
"At Home with Books" to Be Discussed May 7. Estelle Ellis, one of the authors of At Home with Books: How Booklovers Live with and Care for Their Libraries (Crown, 1995), will give an illustrated lecture in the "Books & Beyond" series on May 7 at 1 p.m. in Dining Room A on the sixth floor of the Library's Madison Building. At Home with Books is illustrated with more than 300 color photographs of private libraries and "book spaces" belonging to 40 "book lovers" -- architects, academics, designers, artists, librarians, writers, historians, collectors and curators in the United States and abroad. Interviews with these readers provide many ideas about book collecting, storage and reading.
"The Center for the Book was pleased to offer advice and to be included," said Director John Y. Cole. "Our special contribution was to its þresource directory,' which provides useful information about rare book dealers, book fairs, bookbinding, library furnishings and lighting and the great libraries of the world."
The Rowfant Club Visits LC. More than 60 members of one of the leading book collecting clubs in the United States -- the Rowfant Club of Cleveland -- came to the Library on March 8. Their visit was part of the club's three-day study tour of Washington.
John Cole greeted club members in the Great Hall, where he discussed the Library and the architecture of the Jefferson Building before escorting the group to the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. There, Reference Specialist Clark Evans gave members a presentation about the division's treasures. That evening, Dr. Cole was the speaker at the Rowfant dinner at the Metropolitan Club, where he accepted a gift of two books about the club's history for LC's collections.
Book and Library Historians to Meet at 1996 SHARP Conference. A followup meeting to the Sept. 12-13, 1995, conference of book and library historians at the Library of Congress (see LC Information Bulletin, Oct. 16) will be held on July 18 in Worcester, Mass., in conjunction with the fourth annual meeting of SHARP (the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing). The meeting will be an informal discussion and reporting session about the activities of national and regional book history centers and about the status of various book history and library history publishing projects.
The SHARP conference is being hosted by the American Antiquarian Society (AAS). For further information on the conference or on AAS and its Program in the History of the Book in American Culture, contact John B. Hench or Caroline Sloat, American Antiquarian Society, 185 Salisbury St., Worcester, MA 01609-1634, telephone (508) 752-5813, fax (508) 754-9069, e-mail jbh@mwa.org. For information on joining SHARP, write Linda Connors, Drew University Library, Madison, NJ 07940, lconnors @drew.drew.edu.
Report on Conference on Book Catalogues Published. In support of its mission to encourage the study of books, reading and libraries, in 1995 the Center for the Book helped fund a conference organized by the Bibliographical Projects Committee of the Bibliographical Society of America (BSA). The Invitational Conference on Book Catalogues: Their Collecting, Preservation, Cataloguing and Use was held at the Grolier Club in New York City on Jan. 25. Reports and presentations from the conference were published in the December 1995 issue of The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America.
Introducing this special issue, Guest Editor Roger E. Stoddard, curator of Rare Books, Harvard College Library, characterized the unique nature of these catalogs: They "are part of the literature of awareness. . . . Collectors can find things they never heard about and buy them; scholars can find things they never heard about and use them."
Subscriptions to The Papers are available through membership in the society. For information, contact BSA Executive Secretary Marjory Zaik, P.O. Box 397, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163-0397, tel. (voice/fax) (212) 647-9171.
