Rare Book Monthly Articles - August - 2009 Issue

USF: Collecting Dust

By Bruce McKinney Ten years ago the changing functionality of libraries was, to many, already clear. Libraries would become electronic information gatherers and redistributors and their relationship to the printed word atrophy and decline. Libraries, the repository of books, would become the repository of information. The book, as storage and redistribution element, would be replaced by the database and, in time, the full text search. Libraries, the stodgy backwater of the intellectual revolution, would soon become its Omaha Beach. Five years ago sixty percent of librarians we surv...

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Recipes for Recovery

By Bruce McKinney The book business, like the stock market, was a growth business for many years. Auction realizations increased and listing sites proliferated. Higher prices and the expectati...

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Who Bears the Loss from the David Slade Thefts?

By Michael Stillman One of the uglier criminal book theft cases came to its legal conclusion earlier this year when David Slade, Past President of England's Antiquarian Booksellers Association, ...

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$8 Million Declaration of Independence Found in Britain

By Michael Stillman "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." It was the greatest statement of human rights at least since the Magna Carta, over half a millennium earlier. This statement of "...

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Wikis: Adding Links to Google Books

By Bruce McKinney This past month I used Google Books, the word-by-word search of eight million full text books, to look for buried references for the once vibrant and now mostly forgotten commu...

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Advertising is Coming to Your Books Soon, Like It or Not

By Michael Stillman It's coming to a Kindle near you, and it's as ugly as it is inevitable. Remember when the value of subscription television channels was that you didn't have to watch advertis...

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Auctions: Is the market bottoming?

By Bruce McKinney For only the second time in the past year an entire month of auction results is providing positive comparisions to the previous month. It's an encouraging sign that the marke...

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<i>Bing:</i> Microsoft Reenters the Search Engine Wars

By Michael Stillman The search engine wars may not seem a topic related to the book trade, but of course it is. An increasing number of book sales are generated from search engines, and for thos...

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The AED: useful in tough times

By Bruce McKinney Paid members of AE know what the AED is. It is the Americana Exchange online Database of more than 2.15 million records for books, manuscripts, and ephemera. It is available ...

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Twelve New Catalogues Under Review

There are twelve bookseller catalogues under review for August. Americana is the subject of catalogues from Michael Brown Rare Books and Seneca Books. The Lawbook Exchange features pre-1900 America...

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Rare Book Monthly

  • Fonsie Mealy’s
    Summer Rare Book
    & Collectors’ Sale
    July 30-31, 2024
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: U.S. / European Shipping Archive 1800-1814. The Widow Bermingham & Sons Collection. €7,000 to €10,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Bunreacht na hÉireann. Constitution of Ireland. An important copy of the First Printing of De Valera’s new Constitution, approved in 1938. Signed by the Constitution Cabinet. €7,000 to €9,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: A Rare Complete Run of the Cuala Press Broadsides. €7,000 to €9,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s
    Summer Rare Book
    & Collectors’ Sale
    July 30-31, 2024
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Grose (Francis). The Antiquities of Ireland, 2vols. folio London (for S. Hooper) 1791. Magnificent Hand-Coloured Copy - Only 25 Copies. €3,000 to €5,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Cantillon (Richard). Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en General, Traduit de l'Anglois, Sm. 8vo London (Fletcher Gyles) 1756. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Gregory, (Lady Augusta). Spreading the News: The Rising of the Moon: The Poorhouse (with Douglas Hyde). Being Vol. IX of the Abbey Theatre Series. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s
    Summer Rare Book
    & Collectors’ Sale
    July 30-31, 2024
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Lavery (Lady Hazel). A moving series of three A.L.S. and a Telegram to Gen. Eoin O'Duffy, July-August 1927, expressing her grief at the death of Kevin O'Higgins. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Dampier (Wm.) Nouveau Voyage Autour du Monde, ou l'on descrit en particulier l'Isthme de l'Amerique…, 2 vols. in one, Amsterdam, 1698. €800 to €1,200.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Howell (James). Instructions for Forreine Travel Shewing by what Cours, and in what Compasse of Time…, London, 1642. €800 to €1,200.
    Fonsie Mealy’s
    Summer Rare Book
    & Collectors’ Sale
    July 30-31, 2024
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Rowling (J.K.) Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 8vo, L. (Bloomsbury) 1999, First Edn., First Printing of Deluxe Collectors Edn. Signed. €800 to €1,200.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: James (Wm.) A Full and Correct Account of the Military Occurrences of The Late War Between Great Britain and The United States of America. 2 vols. Lond. 1818. €650 to €900.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: The Laws of the United States, Published by Authority, 3 vols. Philadelphia (Richard Folwell) 1796. €600 to €800.

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