Book Collecting – Page 3 – The viaLibri Blog

Les Nouvelles Réglementations à l’importation de l’UE pour contrer le terrorisme vont viser les bibliophiles

(I want to thank Nevine and Philippe Marchiset
for this French version of our recent blog post regarding proposed EU import regulations.)

Si une nouvelle proposition de Règlement du 13 juillet 2017 était approuvée, les collectionneurs et libraires européens pourraient avoir une fâcheuse surprise lorsqu’ils effectueront leurs premiers achats à l’importation en 2019. À partir de l’année prochaine, ils pourront être soumis à de nouvelles règles d’importation qui compliqueront considérablement le processus d’achat de livres anciens, de gravures et de manuscrits provenant de sources extérieures à l’UE. Le but de ces règles serait de lutter contre le pillage et la contrebande d’objets de fouilles et d’empêcher le financement du terrorisme par le commerce illicite de biens culturels. Bien que cette proposition soit presque entièrement présentée comme étant liée au combat contre le terrorisme, les nouvelles règles seront appliquées de manière globale et ne comprendront aucune disposition prévoyant l’exemption des biens des zones libres de conflit armé ou d’activités terroristes.

Les nouvelles règles doivent s’appliquer à un grand éventail de biens culturels, mais aucun ne sera autant impacté que les livres. Deux types de procédures existent dans la proposition :

Si un livre, une gravure ou une estampe d’un « intérêt spécial » de plus de 250 ans est présenté à l’importation dans n’importe quel État membre de l’UE, le propriétaire ou le « détenteur des biens » devra présenter une déclaration d’importation signée aux autorités douanières du pays d’entrée. La déclaration devra inclure une déclaration que les livres ont initialement été légalement exportés de leur pays source. Toutefois, dans les cas où le pays d’exportation (distinct du pays source) est une « Partie contractante de la Convention de l’UNESCO » sur les biens culturels, le détenteur devra fournir une déclaration attestant que les livres ont été exportés de ce pays, conformément à la législation et à la réglementation de ce dernier. Bien que la proposition de règlement mentionne les livres et documents d’un « intérêt spécial », elle n’en fournit aucun critère de définition, et la notion d’ « intérêt spécial » est suffisamment vague et subjective pour pouvoir inclure, en pratique, n’importe quel livre importé.

Des exigences plus sévères s’appliquent aux incunables et aux manuscrits de plus de 250 ans. Dans ce cas, une licence d’importation doit être demandée et une documentation doit être fournie pour prouver que les biens culturels en question ont été exportés du pays source conformément à ses lois et règlements. Lorsque les marchandises en question sont exportées d’un pays autre que le pays d’origine et que le pays exportateur est signataire de la convention de l’UNESCO, alors la demande doit être accompagnée de documents et d’informations attestant que les biens culturels ont été exportés légalement conformément à la législation et à la réglementation de ce dernier. La demande doit être présentée à une «autorité compétente» (vraisemblablement un bureau de douane) qui disposera de 90 jours pour examiner la demande et l’accepter ou la rejeter. La demande pourra être rejetée si le demandeur n’est pas en mesure de démontrer que les marchandises ont été exportées du pays source « conformément à ses lois et règlements ». Dans le cas où les marchandises sont exportées d’un pays signataire de la Convention de l’UNESCO, alors la demande pourra être rejetée si les marchandises n’ont pas été exportées conformément aux lois et règlements du pays d’exportation.

Il est fastidieux de faire l’inventaire de ces règles, mais, pour nouvelles qu’elles soient, les personnes concernées (libraires, bibliophiles, voire même le grand public) devront les assimiler rapidement.

La proposition a une portée large et s’applique à de nombreuses catégories de biens culturels en plus des livres, des estampes et des manuscrits. Il existe de minces exemptions pour les biens de moins de 250 ans, de même que des dispositions spéciales pour le transit et l’exposition temporaire. Les marchandises de tous les pays source sont inclues et les importations en provenance de tous les pays non membres de l’UE devront passer par ce processus. Il n’y a pas de seuils de valeur similaires à ceux généralement appliqués à l’exportation d’objets culturels (cf. Règlement de l’UE 116/2009). Aucune distinction n’est faite entre les biens commerciaux et personnels. Rien n’indique que les citoyens de l’UE puissent importer leurs biens personnels dans l’UE sans passer par les procédures d’importation décrites. Ainsi, rien n’indique que le citoyen européen qui quittera l’Union en janvier avec des biens culturels personnels pourra revenir avec ces biens en février sans être soumis à la procédure d’importation.

Tout cela pourrait s’apparenter à un énième tracas parmi ceux qui ont vu le jour dans la foulée du 11 septembre, si seulement ce texte disposait d’une quelconque utilité dans la lutte contre le terrorisme. Il est douteux que cela se produise, du moins en ce qui concerne les livres et les manuscrits. Peut-être que les aspects réglementaires visant les objets archéologiques, les sculptures et les œuvres d’art antiques pourraient avoir un impact sur la diminution de la demande illicite et lucrative de ces objets, pour lesquels il existe un marché européen important. Toutefois, les livres, les gravures et les manuscrits sont tout à fait différents. Les livres qui ont été pillés ou saccagés par les terroristes des bibliothèques du Moyen-Orient étaient généralement de nature religieuse et écrits dans des langues sémitiques, telles que l’arabe et l’araméen. Le principal marché pour ces livres se trouve auprès d’acheteurs musulmans ou orientaux qui peuvent lire les textes et avoir un lien culturel avec eux. Si ces livres sont pillés afin de les vendre, alors c’est ce marché qui encourage leur vol. La fermeture des canaux d’exportation aux acheteurs légitimes de l’UE n’aura aucun impact sur ce marché illicite qui continuera de prospérer ailleurs. La très grande majorité des livres occidentaux soumis à ces nouvelles règles qui entreront dans l’UE n’aura pas de lien avec le marché illicite qui finance le terrorisme.

En ce qui concerne les livres, les contrôles qui ont été définis dépendent de la capacité des propriétaires/importateurs («détenteurs de biens») de prouver ou de déclarer que les marchandises importées ont été légalement exportées du pays dans lequel elles ont été créées. Cette exigence sera particulièrement problématique pour les marchands de livres et de gravures. Le libre-échange de livres existe préalablement à l’invention de l’imprimerie et l’exportation légale de livres sans documents administratifs a toujours été une pratique courante, sauf dans des cas exceptionnels. Les documents anciens d’exportation de livres n’existent pas. Ainsi, une personne qui cherche à importer un livre antérieur à 1768 dans l’UE sera soit obligée de faire une déclaration signée sur des faits qu’elle est incapable de connaître, soit, dans le cas des incunables, de fournir des documents et des informations à l’appui qu’il lui sera impossible d’obtenir. Les livres sont des objets intrinsèquement portatifs et créés dans l’espoir qu’ils seront largement distribués dans diverses parties du monde. Les circonstances selon lesquelles un livre individuel du XVIIIe siècle a pu être exporté du pays dans lequel il a été imprimé sont presque certainement inconnues. On peut supposer que la première exportation fut légale, mais la possibilité de contrebande ou de vol ne peut jamais être complètement exclue. Dans la plupart des cas, une déclaration signée affirmant qu’un tel livre a été exporté de son pays d’origine “conformément à sa législation et à sa réglementation” ne peut être que frauduleuse.

Une autre omission remarquable est l’absence d’exception lorsque le pays source et le pays d’importation est le même. Ainsi, un collectionneur allemand désireux d’acheter un incunable allemand auprès d’un libraire américain serait tenu d’obtenir une licence d’importation et de produire des « pièces justificatives et des informations attestant » que l’incunable avait été exporté conformément aux lois et règlements allemands. Même s’il ne s’agit que d’une gravure topographique de Munich d’une valeur de 50 €, l’acheteur devra soumettre une déclaration d’importateur avec une description de l’article et une déclaration signée concernant la légalité de son exportation initiale d’Allemagne.

Plus préoccupant encore est le fait que les pouvoirs dont cette nouvelle autorité d’importation sera investie ne se limitent pas au simple déni du droit d’importer. Bien que les modalités de mise en œuvre ne sont pas précisées dans le règlement tel qu’il est proposé, le communiqué de presse de la Commission européenne indique clairement que « les autorités douanières seront également habilitées à saisir et à conserver des biens (le gras est dans le texte) lorsqu’il n’aura pas pu être démontré que les biens culturels en cause ont été exportés légalement ». Ainsi, la saisie sera autorisée non seulement lorsque l’illégalité peut être prouvée, mais aussi lorsque l’absence d’illégalité ne peut pas être prouvée. Je ne pense pas avoir besoin d’énoncer les conséquences de ce nouveau pouvoir.

Le champ d’application étendu des catégories de biens visés par ces règlements est déroutant, voire dérangeant. Je ne peux que me demander si l’objectif légitime de la lutte contre le terrorisme ne s’est pas transformé en un défi général lancé à l’ensemble du marché pour les biens culturels de tous types. En dehors des livres et des manuscrits, la liste des catégories protégées comprend:

« archives, y compris les archives phonographiques, photographiques et cinématographiques»,
« timbres-poste, timbres fiscaux et analogues, isolés ou en collection;»
« assemblages et montages artistiques originaux, en toutes matières »
« Collections et spécimens rares de zoologie, de botanique, de minéralogie et d’anatomie, et objets présentant un intérêt paléontologique»
«objets d’intérêt ethnologique »
« objets concernant l’histoire, y compris l’histoire des sciences et des techniques, l’histoire militaire et sociale ainsi que la vie des dirigeants, penseurs, scientifiques et artistes nationaux, et les événements d’importance nationale. »

Heureusement, pour l’instant au moins, les marchandises de moins de 250 ans, quelle que soit leur catégorie, sont exemptés. Compte tenu de ce seuil, on peut se demander pourquoi les deux premières catégories ont été incluses. En effet, compte tenu des justifications antiterroristes répétées dans ces règlements, on se demande pourquoi il a été jugé nécessaire d’inclure n’importe laquelle des catégories énumérées ci-dessus. Il est difficile d’éviter de penser que la lutte contre le terrorisme, qui bénéficie d’un large soutien populaire, n’est ici qu’un prétexte pour mettre en place un système de contrôle des importations de tous les biens culturels, indépendamment de la menace, du prix ou de l’origine. Une fois ce cadre bien en place, nous ne devrions pas être surpris de voir les seuils de 250 ans périodiquement réduits, voire éliminés.

Le mémorandum explicatif de 24 pages publié par la Commission européenne exprime peu ou pas d’inquiétude quant à l’impact pesant que ces réglementations auront sur les droits de ses citoyens d’acheter et de recevoir des biens culturels, tels que des livres et des manuscrits, en provenance de l’extérieur de l’UE. La proposition ne tient quasiment pas compte de l’étendue des entraves que ces règles imposeront au commerce légitime et ignore complètement les obstacles qu’elles mettront sur le chemin de particuliers qui tentent, par exemple, de constituer des collections de livres anciens ou se livrent à des recherches historiques. Pour moi tout au moins, ce sont des activités importantes qui soutiennent les intérêts culturels de chacun et devraient être protégées plutôt que défiées. Da manière étonnante donc, le mémorandum ne révèle aucune tentative de mesure de ces activités ou d’évaluation comment elles seront affectées par les règles qui vont être imposées. Certes, le marché des livres anciens est compliqué et largement dispersé. Aucune statistique précise sur sa taille n’a été publiée. La question de savoir quelle quantité de livres et de manuscrits sur le marché libre seront assujettis au règlement proposé est ignorée. Bien que les nombres exacts ne soient pas disponibles, un examen des listes de recherches effectuées sur viaLibri indique que le nombre de livres, manuscrits et gravures antérieurs à 1768 en vente sur Internet doit dépasser les 400 000, avec une quantité sans doute plus élevée. Il est impossible de savoir combien d’entre eux sont vendus chaque année, mais sans doute s’agit-il d’un nombre à six chiffres au moins. Et la majorité d’entre eux ont une valeur inférieure à 300 $; il en existe même quelques-uns dont le prix de vente est inférieur au coût de leur expédition internationale.

Le mémorandum prétend que, durant un processus d’évaluation de trois mois ayant commencé en octobre 2016, 305 «contributions» ont été reçues de « parties intéressées », y compris « les citoyens, les entreprises, les associations professionnelles, les représentants de groupes d’intérêts, les ONG, la société civile et les autorités publiques ». Cependant, on ignore combien de contributeurs individuels sont inclus dans ce nombre, ni quelle est leur identité. La Ligue Internationale de la Librairie Ancienne, nous le savons, n’était pas parmi eux. Ainsi, l’association professionnelle la plus importante, la plus ancienne et la plus représentative dans le domaine des livres anciens et des manuscrits n’a pas participé au processus d’évaluation. Une omission aussi grave ne peut donner confiance au résultat de ces délibérations. Heureusement, cette proposition n’a pas encore été adoptée et il est encore temps de s’en préserver. La LILA a depuis envoyé une lettre exprimant ses inquiétudes aux membres individuels du Parlement Européen qui semblent avoir une quelconque autorité sur cette proposition de loi. Il s’agit de :

– Daniel DALTON (UK) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/35135.html

– Alessia Maria MOSCA (IT) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/124868.html

– Santiago FISAS AYXELÀ (ES) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/96729/SANTIAGO_FISAS+AYXELA_home.html

– Kostas CHRYSOGONOS (GR) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/125061/KOSTAS_CHRYSOGONOS_home.html

Si ce projet vous inquiète, vous pourrez vouloir leur écrire. Je compte le faire.

________________________________________

Continuation 9/3/2018:

QUELQUES REFLÉXIONS SUPPLÉMENTAIRES sur les nouvelles règles d’importation de l’UE

Je suis encore estomaqué par l’audace dont font preuve les règles d’importation proposées par l’UE. Y a-t-il jamais eu une situation comparable où les fonctionnaires administratifs d’un pays sont autorisés à saisir des biens en raison de la compréhension qu’ils auraient des lois d’un autre pays?

Ou de plus de 100 pays?

Avec des dizaines de langues différentes?

Sur plusieurs siècles?

_______________________________________

Continuation 12/3/2018:

Des nouvelles règles pour l’importation des livres anciens et des manuscrits dans l’UE – ce ne sera pas UNE PARTIE DE PLAISIR

Dans mon précédent article sur le règlement d’importation proposés par l’UE, j’ai omis d’ajouter une description détaillée de l’épreuve que vous devrez subir lors de l’importation de biens culturels. C’est la principale préoccupation de la plupart des libraires qui m’en ont parlé. Et avec raison. D’après ce que j’ai lu jusqu’à présent, et bien que les détails ne soient pas encore complètement disponibles, il semble probable que, pour certains d’entre eux tout au moins, des tranquillisants seront nécessaires.

Après avoir à présent lu plusieurs fois la documentation disponible, voici ce que j’en comprends :

Pour les importations nécessitant une licence d’importation (incunables et “manuscrits rares” de plus de 250 ans), le “détenteur de biens” doit demander une licence d’importation auprès d’une “autorité compétente”. Le “détenteur de biens” est défini comme “la personne qui est le propriétaire des marchandises” ou qui a un “droit de disposition” similaire sur eux ou qui en a le “contrôle physique”. L’autorité compétente, bien que non définie, sera généralement un bureau de douane doté d’une compétence spécifique, avec un personnel formé à l’évaluation des biens culturels. Ni ces douanes ni ce personnel n’existent encore.

Dans des cas simples, cette demande de licence sera soumise au bureau de douane compétent accompagnée de documents prouvant que les marchandises ont été exportées légalement. L’autorité compétente disposera alors de 30 jours pour examiner la demande et requérir toute information ou documentation supplémentaire dont elle estimera avoir besoin. Une fois la demande considérée comme complète, l’autorité compétente disposera de 90 jours supplémentaires pour l’accepter ou la rejeter. Lorsque la demande sera acceptée, une licence d’importation sera émise. Les marchandises ne pourront être importées avant la présentation de la licence d’exportation. Étant donné que des dispositions sont prises pour la saisie des marchandises qui entrent dans l’UE sans licence requise, je suppose que les marchandises ne devront pas quitter le pays d’exportation avant que la licence d’exportation ne soit délivrée.

La demande devra être faite par le «détenteur de biens», ce qui signifie soit la propriété soit la possession physique. Donc, si vous êtes un résident de l’UE et que vous voulez acheter un manuscrit ancien ou un incunable auprès d’un vendeur américain, vous devrez d’abord payer votre livre, le laisser aux États-Unis, demander une licence et attendre que la licence soit émise. Alors seulement l’article vous sera expédié. Il devra être envoyé au bureau de douane compétent où il sera examiné pour s’assurer que la marchandise reçue correspond à l’article décrit dans la licence. C’est seulement à ce moment là que vous serez autorisé à recevoir votre achat.

Je devrais noter que l’article 7 fait référence à la restriction du nombre de bureaux de douane qui seront compétents pour autoriser l’entrée dans l’UE des biens culturels. Cela sous-entend que vous ferez face à des difficultés inévitables si vous vivez dans un endroit qui est loin du bureau de douane compétent. Si vous êtes comme moi, vous serez peu enclin à vouloir qu’un précieux incunable ou un manuscrit envoyé à un bureau de douane éloigné pour y être examiné vous soit renvoyé par la poste. Il n’est fait aucune mention des frais et des risques afférents à une telle expédition.

La situation est un peu plus simple pour les livres (ou imprimés) qui ne sont pas des incunables. Il s’agit d’une catégorie distincte qui nécessite une déclaration de l’importateur au lieu d’une licence d’importation. Mais les problèmes sont similaires. La déclaration devra également être présentée à un bureau de douane «compétent» qui examinera physiquement le livre pour déterminer s’il correspond à la déclaration que vous avez fournie. Il pourra également décider de conduire une «expertise», ce qui impliquera vraisemblablement un retard supplémentaire. Encore une fois, on ne sait pas très bien ce que les règlements prévoient dans le cas où vous vivez à une certaine distance du bureau de douane compétent. Est-ce que le livre sera envoyé directement aux douanes et y sera conservé jusqu’à ce que votre déclaration soit reçue et votre livre examiné ? Après cela, aurez-vous besoin de vous rendre personnellement au bureau de douane pour récupérer votre propriété, ou vous sera-t-elle envoyée par la poste ?

Aucun de ces problèmes n’est abordé de manière significative dans aucun des documents que j’ai lus, ce qui m’amène à penser que les personnes à l’origine de toute cette proposition de règlement n’ont pas encore trouvé de solution pratique. Je sais que les solutions actuellement proposées ne sont pas acceptables pour moi.

Ou est-il possible que le règlement suppose simplement que ces mesures soient toutes prises en main par des courtiers en douane, et ils auraient juste oublié de le mentionner ? Si tel est le cas, la situation est pire que nous l’imaginons.

How To Find A Rare Book

I think most people now take it for granted that finding an old book isn’t very hard. Of course, this wasn’t always the case. There was a time, not too long ago, when finding even a relatively ordinary out-of-print book print involved a fair amount of effort and patience. Having already blogged about that HERE I will resist the temptation to rattle on about that subject again.

Things are very different now. If you want to find an old book today it is all very simple: just fill out a form on viaLibri, click the Search button, and then scroll through all the results. If the book you want is being offered for sale almost anywhere on the internet then our comprehensive search engine will almost surely find it for you. And you are likely to find many copies to choose from. Even on a site like viaLibri, which specifically targets the interests of collectors, the median number of results returned from each search is 14. In most cases the only challenge is deciding which copy you want to buy.

But not always. Even with the huge ocean of the internet to fish in it is also possible to search for a book and have nothing show up in the results. Although unusual, it does sometime happen that there are no copies for sale. That is when we can start talking about something being rare.

‘Rare’ is a word we have lately learned to use only with some trepidation. It was subject to much abuse in the days before online bookselling when the primary tool of measurement was nothing more certain than the experience and expertise of whoever was describing the book. Needless to say, the reliability of personal expertise can be quiet variable, and when mistaken claims of rarity have made their way into reference works and respectable bookseller catalogues it is inevitable that they will be repeated elsewhere and eventually take on the appearance of fact – all of which was possible because, for most of the books that might be encountered in the market place, there was usually no objective reference to validate or refute a claim of rarity.

Then, of course, the internet came along, and with it the perception of rarity ceased to be a matter of judgement and experience and became, instead, a simple, measurable fact. A book for which multiple copies were available online could no longer be considered rare and no bibliographic authority could make it otherwise. To much consternation and dismay, many books long regarded as “rare” were found to be otherwise. As a result, a new simpler measure established itself:

No-copies-for-sale-online = RARE

A simplistic formula for sure, but its simplicity and empirical objectivity trumped any other considerations, at least as far as the marketplace was concerned; and it was a proof available to all.

Using that criteria it turns out that a significant number of the books that people want cannot, at this moment, be found for sale online. A check in the search log for viaLibri shows that roughly 1 search in 5 returns an empty result. Moreover, while it turns out that many of the books once thought to be rare are actually not so, it has also become apparent that there are many more genuinely rare books than might previously have been imagined. When they surface they are compared with what is already for sale online. If there are no other copies found then they are far more likely to receive a careful examination than they would have in a less connected world.

At the top of this post I alluded to how easy the internet has made it to find copies of most out-of-print books. One might suppose that rare books would be different and that if the book you wanted was not currently available for sale online then there would not be much that the viaLibri could do to help you find it. But that isn’t necessarily so.

If a book is not available today that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t appear tomorrow, or next week, or six months from now. But it also doesn’t mean you have to keep coming back every day to look for it. That is what we created Libribot to do. Once your search criteria have been saved in the Wants Manager you can sit back and relax. Our persistent search bot will then start to work checking daily for new listings of the book you want. When it finds one it will send you an email with a direct link to the website where the book is being offered for sale.

You may think that you are doomed to wait a very long time if the book you are looking for is “rare” and not currently available online, but that isn’t necessarily true. It is often the case that a book cannot be found for the simple reason that the demand for it greatly exceeds the supply. In absolute terms it may not be considered rare, but in practical terms it will effectively be so. When a book of this sort appears on the market it doesn’t take long for it to be noticed, sold and to disappear. If you really want it then you will need to move fast and buy it before someone else. Libribot can help make sure you are not too late.

Even if the book is really not that rare, it may be that all the copies you find online are more expensive than what you want to pay. In that case you might resign yourself to the idea that the book is beyond your reach. You shouldn’t give up so easily. The copies you find but can’t afford may just be over-priced. They may belong to patient sellers who hope some day to get the maximum price possible. While they are waiting, however, other sellers may come along who, in return for a quick sale, will be happy to let their copy go more reasonably. All you need to do is tell Libribot and it will quickly go to work and report to you when it finds a copy with a more agreeable price. And if you tell Libribot the maximum you are prepared to pay it will continue searching for your book without bothering you about copies that don’t fit your budget.

All of which is meant to show you that if you aren’t already letting Libribot help you find books then maybe you should give it a try. Times have changed and finding rare books may now be much easier than you think.

York Book Fair – See You There.

The York Book Fair is nearly upon us and eager anticipation is everywhere on the rise. With over 200 booksellers (including several from overseas) York is easily the largest antiquarian book fair in Europe. Many bibliophiles will be travelling long distances to be there when the doors open at noon on Friday the 15th. And I, as usual will, be among them.
This year, however, I will be accompanied by Alasdair North, our CTO and the digital magician behind the viaLibri curtain.

Once inside, we will both be looking for books – I to resell (mostly), Al to collect. But we will both also be there with feedback about viaLibri at the top of our want lists. If anyone has questions about any of the things we do then we will be more than happy to take a break and try to answer them. That includes questions about building a new website or having links to your existing website included in our search results.

If you would like to have one of us drop by your stand during the fair just let me know. If you don’t have a stand we can meet with you in one of the cafés. If you like to plan ahead you can send a quick email to: mail@vialibri.net. If you want to get in touch just before or during the Fair then you can call me on my mobile: +44 7814 266 372. Either way we will be happy to hear from you.

Follow Us Now On Instagram

We are now posting regularly to Instagram. You will find us there as @vialibri. The main focus of our postings will be photos of unusual or graphically interesting early books and related items that have been found by visitors searching on our site. We hope to do this daily, and if we fail to keep that pace it will not be due to a lack of suitable material.

If you are not yet familiar with Instagram you may want to try visiting it now. There is already a large and active group of bibliophiles from around the world sharing interesting images there. The community of rare book librarians on Instagram is particularly active and eager to pull from their vaults many treasures that would otherwise be rarely seen. @americanantiquarian is a particular favourite of ours, but they are just one of many. The number of booksellers with interesting feeds is also impressive, although we must resist having favourites there.

viaLibri now also has a new feature created specifically for the benefit of our Instagram followers. You can now go to www.vialibri.net/instagram and find a graphic grid showing all the photos we have recently posted, with the most recent ones at the top. These photos are all linked to individual pages where the complete descriptions of the pictured items are given exactly as provided by the bookseller who offered them for sale. There is even a link for purchasing the item if it has not already been sold. A link to our photo grid is also included as part of our Instagram profile, or “bio,” page so that detailed bibliographic descriptions can be found only three clicks away from your feed.

Of course, you can also check out our most recent postings just by going to the page mentioned above. That would save you from ever having to actually go to the Instagram site itself; but then you would be missing out on all the fun.

Rare Books London.

Early June has long been an important spot on the calendars of bibliophiles around the world. The original source of interest came from the fact that it always marked a unique concentration of opportunities to buy and sell books during a busy schedule of London book fairs and auctions. Those events alone were enough to lead a diverse flock of booksellers, collectors and other bibliophiles to converge annually on London, like swallows to Capistrano.

Recent years, however, have seen a greatly expanded scope and duration for what has now become known as Rare Books London. An impressive cohort of libraries and other bibliophilic groups have now joined their bookselling friends to organise an 18 day “fesitval of old and rare books” running from May 24 to June 10. In addition to the well-known book fairs and auctions, their schedule of events now includes 18 talks, 10 tours, and a special performance based on the writings of Samuel Johnson. More events will likely be added as the dates approach.

Information about everything that will be happening can be found on the RARE BOOKS LONDON website. Nearly all the events are free, but for many of them an advance ticket is required and spaces may be limited. It will be smart to reserve your places soon. Links for booking all the activities will be found on the website.

Rare Books London is a great idea and we are happy to be able to support it. If you think so too then you can also help support it and contribute to its success by posting, tweeting, pinning or just plain writing about it anywhere you can. After that I hope I will see you there.

A Busy Week For Bibliophiles.

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If you are a wandering bibliophile who will happen to be in New York City at the end of the month you should count yourself fortunate. Bibliography Week 2017 will be taking place there from January 23 to 28 and a there is a full schedule of events that you should find of interest. Lectures, exhibits and receptions are all on the list. The event does not appear to have its own website, but a full program of events will be found on the Grolier Club website.

We would love to be there ourselves, but that week we instead find ourselves in Stuttgart instead, where two major and long-lived book fairs will again be taking place.
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It does not sound like it will be aweek for staying home.

Searching for books in the digital age.

Anyone who managed to struggle to the end of my recent post on “Searching For Books In Days Of Yore” may recall my reckless promise to continue on that topic at a later date. It was not an idle threat. So, ignoring the fact that I am probably the only person who actually finds this subject of interest, I will keep my promise and now pick up where I left off two weeks ago.

In case you hadn’t noticed, a lot of things about book searching have changed since the days I was describing in my previous post. Out of all of them, one fundamental change in particular needs to be mentioned first: before the internet came along, if you wanted a specific book that was out-of-print you almost always needed a bookseller to find it for you. There were no real options for doing it yourself. The periodicals which carried the necessary “books wanted” lists were all trade publications. Private buyers did not advertise in them. The search process was effectively closed to the retail customer. This meant that if a sought-after book was available somewhere the buyer who wanted it never actually came in contact with the dealer who had it in stock. At least two booksellers were required for every sale.

The internet made one of those booksellers superfluous.

Needless to say, this innovation did not generate enthusiasm from the booksellers who had once derived income from the inefficient system it destroyed. I have enormous sympathy for them, as I do for all the travel agents, encyclopedia salesmen, music store owners, directory publishers, newspaper delivery boys and members of any other occupations whose lives were similarly upended by the internet. The current popular term for this is “disruption.” It is a very Big Thing and has many people excited. Venture capitalists and technology entrepreneurs worship in the temple of disruption. They spend a good portion of their working day trying to cook up new ways to render useless the existing skills and practices that provide a living for the rest of us. Thus, when disruption came to the book searching business about 15 years ago there was no cheering from the trade. It is easy to understand why. For many of them it was the end of the world as they knew it.

As for myself, there is definitely a part of me that would be quite content if they called a halt to all this disruption and just let everyone go on with their business doing things as they had always done them before. I especially feel this way when I think about all my fellow booksellers who once made a living helping their customers find books in the pre-digital age. In fact, I must confess that I ran a book search service myself once upon a time. It was how I got my start in the book business, even before my wife and I opened our first shop. I did not know then that I was a dinosaur, and was happy not to know it. Things seemed just fine the way they were.

But today, for better or worse, I have to count myself among the disrupters. It would be pointless to pretend otherwise. And if I stand in that camp and consider the question of book searching I feel compelled to do it from the perspective of the buyer rather than the seller. When I do that, this is what I see:

-Before the internet, if you discovered an out-of-print book that you thought might be of interest it generally took at least a week or two just to find out if there might be a copy available somewhere for sale.

After the internet you could find this out in seconds.

– Before the internet you might learn about a book that you thought could be of interest to you, but have no idea of what it might cost you if a copy were found. The only way to find out would be to put a friendly bookseller to the expense and trouble of searching for it for you. Since there was always good chance it might cost more than you could afford or want to pay, it was likely that you would only decide to do this if it were a book you absolutely had to have it.

After the internet you could quickly check the price and availability of any book without expense, embarrassment or commercial engagement.

-Before the internet, the pool of available books to search from was limited to the available stock of those booksellers who took the time and trouble to quote from published want lists. This was only a tiny fraction of the total books available in the marketplace.

After the internet, the pool of findable books exploded as it became possible for booksellers to upload their entire inventory online and leave it there until sold. At the same time, the actual quoting of a book became unnecessary to sell it. These two things made it dramatically easier to locate a reasonable copy of a wanted book.

– Before the internet the reach of want lists rarely went beyond national or linguistic boundaries. The periodicals that carried them had limited distribution beyond the countries they were published in, and quoters rarely saw profit in mailing out quotes at international postage rates. This made searching for books published in other countries or languages especially difficult.

After the internet the marketplace became international. Metasearch sites brought books together from booksellers around the world. Customers were no longer limited to looking for foreign books primarily from the stocks of booksellers in their own country.

– Before the internet, most of the book descriptions offered to search services provided little more than a coded description of format and condition. Things like “8vo, v.g./dj.” were often all you knew about the copy you were offered to buy,

After the internet descriptions became fuller and more useful. Many copies were even illustrated with photos, and if photos were necessary and not already displayed online it was always possible to ask for them to be sent as email attachments.

Of course, the most significant change of all was in the price of books. Before the internet, common books purchased through search services were usually quite expensive relative to what they would normally sell for anywhere else.

After the internet, common books became cheap.

I could go on, but there is no need. The point is made. Disruption came to the world of book searching and the result, for the consumers at least, was a dramatic change for the better. What was once impossible became possible. What was once difficult became simple. What was once costly became cheap. And the vast availability of books online, coupled with new and powerful tools to search for them, enabled serious bibliophiles to pursue their interests in ways that were unimaginable two decades before.

Collectors, of course, already know this – the younger ones in particular. I hear it from them often. They are happy. Many of them have come to realize that they are living in a golden age. The booksellers of my generation, however, are not all convinced. I still hear many of them complaining about how heavy and shiny everything has become. I try to argue with them sometimes, but I never win.

Remembering how we once searched for books.

[Long before viaLibri had its own proper blog I began blogging (and even tweeting) under the name of vialibrian. It was not, I must confess, a very sustained effort, and the size of my following reflected this. Now that viaLibri has its own blog, demanding its own attentions, I have had to acknowledge that finding the time for a single blog is challenge enough. I do not need two. So vialibrian has posted his last post.

However, we still imagine that most of the subjects that vialibrian chose to comment on continue to be interest, at least to some. So, rather than abandon the old posts completely I decided to let them emigrate here to a new home where they can live on in fresh obscurity. Most will just sit far back in the timeline, as though they had been there all along. A few of them, however, will be brought over and re-inserted, under the pretence that there may still be visitors who will find interest in what we had to say a few years ago.

We begin here with some comments on book searching that were first posted on August 4, 2013.]

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Searching for books in days of yore.

Back in April [2013], when I launched this blog, I was pleased that my first post managed to elicit a nice comment. One particular point made by this commenter has been banging around in my head ever since. On the subject of want lists, he wrote:

Electronic book-collecting tools are all focused on “dealer push” — a vendor essentially saying, “Here’s what I have. Are you interested.” The tools aggregate and push this information. We know that many large booksellers do not have the time or inclination to post all of their inventories. It would be nice to go back to the old days of “pull” — posting want lists in magazines to let dealers and fellow collectors know what we are interested in and looking for. It’s a service I would readily pay for within the context of a strong collector community like ViaLibri.

It was an interesting suggestion, even without the hint of additional revenue. It made me wonder. I am always surprised at how easy it is to forget the ”old days” of antiquarian bookselling, before the internet changed everything. It was a time when weekly printed periodicals like The Clique, Bookdealer and AB Bookman were the primary tools of book searching; or, more precisely, the only tools for book searching.

For those too young or forgetful to remember, it worked like this: First you made a list of the books you wanted. Unless you were a bookseller yourself, you then had to find someone who was and give them your list. They would type it up [another call to nostalgia] along with all the other lists they had been given and then mail it to one of the aforementioned magazines where it would appear, along with numerous other similar lists, every week, ink on paper, in endless printed columns of ”Books Wanted.” At that point thousands of hopeful booksellers around the world, many of them list-makers themselves, would begin reading through the pages, line after line, column after column, searching hopefully for any wanted book they might happen to have for sale.

Want Lists From The Bookdealer. 1993. [Thanks to Todd Pratum]

After that the “quoting” would begin. Items to be quoted would first need to be hunted for and located on whatever shelf they had been assigned to or misplaced on. Then descriptions had to be prepared. Postcards, paper slips, even letters would be written, usually by hand, describing, as succinctly as possible, the essential details of the book on offer – and little more. The amount of time required to write all these descriptions placed a great premium on abbreviation. As a result, a compact, almost stenographic language of book description evolved in response. (It had, I would grant, antecedents in the jargon of printed catalogues) Notations such as a.e.g, ARC, ALS, FE, bce, f.f.e., v.g. and, most notorious of all, w.a.f, all became part of the compressed specialist language of booksellers and initiated collectors. But even these shortcuts only reduced by a small fraction the work at hand. And it was not a stimulating activity by any measure.

But tedious labor was not the only investment made in quoting books for sale. Ignoring the cost of postage (which for some might not be an insignificant expense) the bookseller also invested opportunity cost with every book he offered for sale. This came from the fact that quoting a book nearly always meant removing it from available stock and putting it on reserve. In the days of snail mail this usually involved three weeks or even a month. (Sometimes the actual customer at the other end also needed to be contacted by post, so a month could easily pass before a sale could be confirmed). To quote a book and then be unable to provide it was a breach of faith that few colleagues would easily forgive or forget. So the decision to quote an item to a distant hypothetical customer might also mean foregoing its equally possible sale to a customer who might actually walk through the door after the book had been withdrawn on quote. The more desirable and uncommon the book, the greater the risk and cost in putting it on reserve.

The quoters, however, were not the ones who took the greatest risk. That would be found on the other side of the potential transaction: the booksellers who made the lists in the first place. These, you see, were not free. They were paid advertising, pure and simple. You were charged by the line, or the page, and it was not cheap. Every book listed was a separate wager that a copy might be found and sold. Many booksellers were only willing to take this gamble on the behalf of their regular customers. The others who were willing to offer a “search service” to the general public did so as a calculated risk. For most of these, the ordinary out-of-print book was their bread and butter. The more common it was the better. On one hand, a customer looking for Fanny Farmer’s Cook Book was as good as money in the bank. On the other hand, a PHD student with a list of the 18th century epistolary novels not already available from nearby libraries was an almost certain financial loss.

A few booksellers would try to shift their risk by charging their customers for each book they wanted before they had found it. This was, however, unusual. The typical customer readily perceived a potential scam in this approach and usually went elsewhere. The “free” book search service was always the norm.

In spite of the risk, many who provided this service appeared to be quite successful and regularly advertised multiple pages of wants. Some even advertised their free services in places like the New York Times and the TLS. The economics of this have always been intriguing to skeptics like myself. It is a losing game to advertise for uncollected books that are unlikely be found. If you had the experience to already know what was available, and what was not, the temptation to ignore requests for the latter might be difficult to resist. The only alternative would be to have the customer for Fanny Farmer subsidise the cost of searching for the other items that were unlikely to be found. This was the usual approach, but it could make the out-of-print cookbooks and knitting manuals very expensive. And often they were, at least when you resorted to a search service to find them. But the buyers rarely complained. They generally understood that the marketplace for old books was hopelessly disorderly and inefficient. Whenever it did manage to yield, on request, a long sought-after item the reaction on the part of the customer was almost always a mixture of gratitude and surprise.

Many, many books were bought and sold in this fashion. It was a system that lasted a bit more than a century. It helped sustain many struggling booksellers whose shops were otherwise too remote from regular customers to support a living wage. It provided to the inexperienced novitiates of the antiquarian book trade a weekly lesson book on the mysterious marketplace they hoped to enter. It became, in many respects, the universal binding agent in the large and otherwise disconnected world of second-hand bookselling.

And then, almost over night, it was gone.

(To be continued…)

Book collecting conference in Cambridge this weekend. We will be there.

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This weekend (June 18-19) we will be attending a conference in Cambridge with the promising title of: Mania and Imagination: Perils and pleasures of the private collector, present and future. Odd though it may seem, I am actually excited by the idea of spending two days discussing the current and future state of book collecting. Especially the future bit. The conversations I am most often engaged in along these lines generally trend towards irritation and despair. Things like PODs, kindles, robopricing and the relentless decline in the value of books once thought to be rare have put a sour taste in the mouths of many who first entered the world of book collecting in the pre-digital age. Optimism about the future of collecting books seems to be a scarce commodity among the bibliophiles of my generation.

But I’m expecting that the conference in Cambridge will reflect a more hopeful outlook. I find it hard to imagine that many participants would pay a fee and travel all the way to King’s College, for two days, just to grumble about how the current and future prospects for collectors have been ruined by the internet.

I do, I admit, wonder what the perils referred to in the conference title might actually be referring to. Mania? That, of course, would be nothing new. But perhaps it is changing its form. That could be interesting. And there is a session devoted, simply, to Dilemmas. I am eager to learn what those might be. (I think it must be the problem of how to adjust to a world where the digitally-driven flood of collecting opportunities exceeds our capacity to evaluate or purchase them. Could it possibly be anything else?)

So I am looking forward to seeing old friends, perhaps meeting a few new ones, and having a generally stimulating weekend talking about old books. And I will also be taking notes, which means you may hear more about this again in the future. The glorious future.