People We Adore
Book people, ephemera people, people who share our deep and abiding passion for all things bibliophilic, people who believe in the preservation and dissemination of knowledge: academics, librarians, historians, book artists, booksellers, collectors — They're our heroes!
Just click on the logos to visit their sites. (And oops — did we miss someone? Mail us at Editor@BookFairs.Com!)
Here today, gone tomorrow? Not if the ESA has anything to say about it! Some of the most gorgeous stuff on paper, anywhere. We kinda heart their web site. You will too!
And you thought we were geeks. These guys wrote the book! (Well, papers, really. As in, the quarterly journal Papers of the BSA...)
These are the folks who keep track of it all, from the Bay Psalm Book right on up to today.
Our nation's history on paper, up to 1876. Books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, periodicals, music, and more. The definitive source, staffed by dedicated people.
The former Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar (now simply the Antiquarian Book Seminar) has been around forever, but it gets better every year. It's been called "boot camp for booksellers," but we call it "essential" (as in, move heaven and earth to get there!), for booksellers, librarians, and collectors alike.
The fount of all knowledge, Rare Book School offers a variety of week-long courses at the University of Virginia, UPenn, in Washington D.C., New York, and elsewhere.
Based in Brooklyn, Booklyn does great work, connecting book artists and educators around the globe. Bonus: Pick up a (free!) copy of their classic Illustrated Manual on book-making...
Bookbinders and finishers (specialists in tooling, gilding, and other decorative arts) often lead solitary lives, working (as they so often do) alone in their studios, hand-binding, restoring, and repairing books. The Guild gives these brilliant artists and artisans the most important thing of all: Family.
Some of our favorite things come in very, very small packages, indeed! The Miniature Book Society revels in the diminutive — no more than three inches tall, if you please!
We'd all follow Alice anywhere, of course, and who doesn't thrill to the hunt for the Snark and the Jabberwock? But if Carrollingian math problems and philosophical conundra also curl your toes, the Lewis Carroll Society of North America is just the rabbit hole for you!
Paper, type, ink. So simple, yet so powerful. Even in their most basic forms, they have transmitted all of human knowledge, and have the ability to set the world on fire. But in the right hands, they can also combine to become high art. At the FPBA, these are those hands. Their web site is a resource for some of the most beautiful book-work being done today.
The Antiquarian Booksellers' Benevolent Fund was established in 1952 by booksellers, for booksellers. It's an important advocate in times of personal crisis or need. You can learn about by clicking on the logo above, or more anecdotally here.
The Wood Engravers Network is the place for those who make and collect hand-graven prints, and the home of one of our favorite blogs — their monthly calendar offerings are often whimsical and always sublime, and their occasional additional posts are equally delightful.
A joint venture of the AAS (see above) and the University of Connecticut, Common-Place is the online home of the Journal of Early American Life, an amazing resource for all things pre-20th Century, from colonial times through the long-and-fraught aftermath of the Civil War. Like the commonplace books for which it's named, the site is crammed full of wide-ranging and surprising treasures.
Held annually in June, the Book History Workshop at the Cushing Library at Texas A&M is just all kinds of hands-on fun for printing press fans. Channel your inner Gutenberg, William Morris, or Aldus Manutius as you play with typecasting and setting, papermaking, bookbinding, illustration, ink-making, and more. Or just go for the wayzgoose — we won't tell!
Wow! It's a one-stop shop for all things paper, manuscripts, books, printing, and more! UPrinting provides links to more than 60 articles from around the internet, on subjects ranging from papyrus, woodblock printing and the invention of movable type, to papermaking, Gutenberg, Luther and the printing press, and beyond.
They're independent. They're online. They're booksellers from around the globe. Meet the Independent Online Booksellers Association, a consortium of vetted professional dealers fiercely devoted to standing up against the big box stores and Internet giants. Like supporting small business? IOBA is the place for you.