Book Collecting Conference This Month at Brigham Young University

The tenth annual A. Dean Larsen Book Collecting Conference will be held at Brigham Young University in Provo Utah on Friday, March 22, 2013, with a group of pre-conference workshops the previous day. Anyone with an interest in collectible books, either from a collector's or trade participant's perspective, within traveling distance of Provo/Salt Lake City should make their way to BYU. These conferences are amazingly inexpensive for an education. It's just $35 for a day of learning, and an additional $35 for one of the pre-conference workshops.

Here is how it works. You can either print out and mail in the online registration form, or call them and a real person will complete your form and accept your credit card. It's that simple. You get to go to college without sending in any transcripts, providing recommendations, or taking the SAT, for $35 of tuition. Anyone funding someone's college education will be astonished by a deal like that. If for some reason you can't attend, you can transfer your registration to an associate.

Award winning illustrator Bethanne Andersen will host a seminar on British illustrators. Other offerings include a seminar on understanding and collecting folklore, one on fine printing in North America, collecting accounts of travelers to Yellowstone and other national parks, and a visit to the Civil War exhibition. There are also three seminars in the highly collectible field of Mormon texts, including Mormon hymnbooks 1832-1872, Mormon incunabula (1830-1839), and a history of printed editions of the Book of Mormon, starting with the typeset from the original manuscripts.

Three workshops are offered on the day preceding the conference (Thursday, March 21). There is a hands-on instruction workshop on cloth spine repair, one of the most common issues with older books. Participants should bring a book with a torn or loose spine as you will learn how and then complete a repair. A second workshop will cover “book repair on a budget,” where you will learn how to make basic repairs and know when it is necessary to seek professional assistance. A third workshop will will take you through the procedures used in creating albumen photographs, including actually producing one yourself using this 19^th century process (it involves breaking a lot of eggs). The first two workshops are a half-day in length, the albumen photograph workshop taking a full day.

Those who go will be able to attend four of the eight seminars. Registrants can then add on the pre-conference workshops if they wish. Enrollment is limited to 125 participants so don't delay. You can find out information on how to register and more details about the conference and the available courses at the following website: adlbookcollectingconference2013.wordpress.com/registration.