viaLibri ~ Rare Books - Resources for Bibliophiles, Librarians and Collectors

Time 2020-09-30 16:04:38

Web Name: viaLibri ~ Rare Books - Resources for Bibliophiles, Librarians and Collectors

WebSite: http://www.vialibri.net

ID:65357

Keywords:

Books,Resources,viaLibri,rarebooks,booksearch,oldbooks,antiquarianbooks,librarys

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The most interesting phenomenon of the last month or so, at least from a bibliophilic perspective, has been the arrival of a new way to buy and sell books online: virtual book fairs. The idea followed in the wake of the cancellation of multiple traditional physical book fairs as a result of the coronavirus.  By my count there have already been at least seven virtual fairs, beginning with a digital version of the Paris Book Fair opening on April 23 and followed by fairs organised by IOBA, PBFA, Marvin Getman, ABAA, ABA ( Firsts ) and, most recently, the Rose City Virtual Book Fair.For those who did not join in, the fairs were basically of two types. The first group consisted primarily of  a listing of exhibitors with links to PDF catalogues available for browsing.  This replicated the fair lists that are now regularly sent out by many of the dealers as a preview of what they will be offering in their booth at a traditional physical fair. For many dealers the sales generated by these lists often exceed what they receive at the actual event.  In this way the virtual fairs were able to do much to compensate revenue lost when planned-for fairs did not take place.The second group consisted of books that were aggregated into a joint data base where each exhibitor was able to include a fixed number of items  (12 to 50) that could be searched, sorted and filtered in a variety of ways.  This is not too distant from the group search engines that we are already familiar with, except that here the individual dealers are given much more prominence and are better able to present themselves to potential buyers than in the search engine venues that people are already familiar with.  Buyers were also encouraged to believe that the books that were on offer were all new to the market.  Those who took the time to double-check this on Google, or even viaLibri, often discovered that this was not always the case, but it was for sure that at most of the fairs the sellers made an effort to put some of their best or most unusual items onto their virtual stands.Most of the data-driven fairs were also interesting because they left the sold items on display, still priced, but flagged to let you know that someone else beat you to it. Unlike traditional fairs, I doubt if there were any books that passed through 2 or 3 virtual stands before the doors first opened to the public.  And given the number of sold stickers I saw at some fairs it is clear that, at those fairs at least, there were many sales taking place. I will admit that I had limited expectations regarding attendance, and the organisers apparently did too.  The ABAA and Firsts fairs were overwhelmed by visitors at their openings,  which in both sites being virtually frozen for at least twenty minutes, if not more.  Whether those visitors waited, came back later, or just gave up, I don t know. But I think the prospects for future online book fairs are very good.  Several of the sponsors of the recent fairs have announced that they plan to have monthly fairs in the future.I am very interested in hearing the comments from other buyers and sellers who participated in any of the VBFs that have just taken place.Did they find them a good way to buy or sell?Will they show up at future fairs?Will the old-fashioned  book fairs return to their same prominence after the call for social distancing has been revoked? The sad but generally expected cancellation of the ILAB  Congress in Amsterdam was announced yesterday, along with  similar news for the book fair that would have accompanied it. That news was followed today by cancellation of the September York fair, Europe s largest.The status of other future book fairs,  or at least those scheduled for sometime in 2020, is now an open question.The most notable response, so far, has been a quick scheduling of  the alternative online events now generally referred to as virtual book fairs. At least a couple of these have already taken place and another 3 that we know of  are planned for the next three weeks.Everyone is hopeful that these virtual fairs will find enough real buyers to help sustain booksellers and collectors until they are ready to emerge from lock down.   If you are interested in doing a bit of virtual book hunting we list below 3 events already on out calendar. If there are others you know of please let me know.May 29,  Noon to 5 GST   May Online Book Fair (PBFA)June 4-7 , 10 am EST Virtual Book Fair  (ABAA)June 5,   2 pm to 11 pm  ABA, (in place of cancelled  London Firsts Fair) Many of you may not be aware that a virtual Book Fair has been organised to fill the void left by the postponement of this year s Salon du Livre Rare, traditionally held this week at the Grand Palais.  The familiar physical fair will now be held in September, but a new virtual version will also now be held on the usual dates.  Some details will be found here:https://ilab.org/articles/next-ilab-webinar-paris-virtual-book-fair-launched-weekIn connection with the virtual book fair there will also be a pair of Zoom webinars (French and English) scheduled to begin at 1 pm (Paris time) on Wednesday. These will provide the launch for the virtual fair, which opens on Thursday at 5. A more complete brief on the focus of the webinars has not been provided to me at least but I suspect they will extend themselves beyond just the idea of virtual bookselling.Links for joining the webinars will be found by following the link shown above.  I haven t yet found the url for the virtual fair itself, but will post it here as soon as I can get it.Here is where you will find the virtual book fair, starting on Thursday at 5pm (Paris time):https://www.salondulivrerare.paris/ Last week s ILAB-organised webinar on COVID-19 And The Rare Book Trade was a fascinating event for bibliophiles in general and the rare book trade in particular. (See last week s blog post for more about this). Seven prominent booksellers from seven countries shared insights into how they are coping  with lockdown. For myself, I found it noteworthy how similar the experiences were around the globe.  In was yet more testimony of how much  Amor Librorum Nos Unit.I m told that over 170 people plugged into Zoom to listen to the conversation live and ask a few questions after the remote panelists were done.  Fortunately for those who could not log into the live event a recording was also made.  It can be watched here:ZOOMI hope everyone else will get as much out of this as I did.

TAGS:Books Resources viaLibri rarebooks booksearch oldbooks antiquarianbooks librarys

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