Richard W. Clements, author of The Book in America, with Images from the Library of Congress, will speak at the Library at noon on Wednesday, March 5. Sponsored by the Center for the Book, the presentation will take place in the Mumford Room on the sixth floor of the James Madison Memorial Building. It is open to the public.
Published last year by Fulcrum Publishing in cooperation with the Library, The Book in America tells the story of the book in America from 1638 to today. The 150-page book features 24 color and 94 black-and-white illustrations from the Library's rare and often unique book and special collections. Divided chronologically into five chapters ("Colonial Book Production," "Publishing in the New Nation," "The Rise of the Great Houses," "Industrialization and Expansion," "The Book in Twentieth Century America"), it also includes thematic sections on "Libraries in America," "Reading in America" and "Books at War." The foreword is by Dr. Billington; Center for the Book Director John Y. Cole contributed an afterword.
Richard W. Clement is a librarian at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, where he also is a professor of English and proprietor of the Hole and Corner Press. Currently he is researching another volume of book history for publication by Fulcrum in cooperation with the Library.
Conference on Publishers' Archives in the 1990s
How are changes in the marketplace, technology and scholarship affecting the importance, collection and use of publishers' archives? Why are most publishers unaware of the value of their own historical records and what can be done to increase awareness? How does the dominance of conglomerates in publishing affect research repositories and the work of the growing number of scholars studying the history of authorship, reading and publishing?
These were some of the questions that provoked lively debate -- and suggestions for action -- among the 81 participants at a symposium on "Publishers' Archives in the 1990s: The Changing Marketplace, Technology and Scholarship" in New York City at Columbia University on Oct. 3-5.
Sponsored by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress and Columbia University's Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the meeting brought together academics, librarians, archivists and publishing professionals from the United States, Canada and Great Britain. John Y. Cole, director of the Center for the Book, and Jean Ashton, director of Columbia's Rare Book and Manuscript Library, were the conference organizers and co-chairs. The meeting was supported by the Association of American Publishers (AAP), the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) and the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing (SHARP). Each of these organizations will work with the Center for the Book and other groups to follow up on conference recommendations.
One of the major recommendations was that more be done to alert publishers and other members of the book trade to the value of their own archives and historical records. Another suggestion was that archivists and librarians actively offer records management advice to publishers. With the cooperation of the publishing industry and the scholarly community, the Center for the Book also hopes to stimulate publication of practical guides that contain model agreements between publishers and repositories, describe different kinds of publishing and book trade archives (e.g., financial, probate and copyright records), and explain how to use these records. The center also is preparing a detailed report on the Oct. 3-5 conference.
The keynote speaker on the evening of Oct. 3 was Robert Giroux (right), former chairman of Farrar, Straus & Giroux and one of the most influential editors in modern American publishing. After noting that he was pleased to have played a role in the placement of the Farrar, Straus & Giroux archives at the New York Public Library, he briefly described his friendships and working relationships with T.S. Eliot, Flannery O'Connor, Jack Kerouac and Robert Frost. At the end of the evening John Cole paid a tribute to Mr. Giroux and thanked him for his presentation: "Your presence and recollections embody the purpose of our symposium: to demonstrate that publishing history is a vital part of our cultural and social history."
The next day, conference participants plunged into a day and a half of panel presentations and discussions organized around six themes: "The Publishing Process and the Historical Record," "The Changing Marketplace and Publishers' Archives," "Intellectual Property Issues," "Publishers' Archives as Primary Research Sources," "Inventories of Publishers' Archives -- The Current National and International Scene" and "Access Issues -- Today and Tomorrow."
Panelists and commentators included: Allan R. Adler, AAP; Julia Blixrud, CAPCON Library Network; Lisa Brower, the Lilly Library; Muriel Caplan, Henry Holt & Co., Ann Cowan, Centre for Publishing Studies, Simon Fraser University; James Danky, State Historical Society of Wisconsin; Laura Gasaway, University of North Carolina; Carol Gerson, Simon Fraser University; Ezra Greenspan, University of South Carolina; Irving S. Hamer Jr., Simon & Schuster; Cathy Henderson, University of Texas; William L. Joyce, Princeton University Library; Donald S. Lamm, W.W. Norton & Co.; Patrick Leary, Indiana University; Mary Levering, Library of Congress; Beth Luey, Arizona State University; David McKitterick, Trinity College Library, Cambridge, England; Laura Millar, publishing consultant; Jim Milliot, business editor, Publishers Weekly; Leslie A. Morris, Harvard College Library; Gordon Neavill, Wayne State University; Sandra K. Paul, BISG; Jonathan Rose, SHARP; Joan Shelley Rubin, University of Rochester; Thomas F. Staley, University of Texas; James L. W. West, III, Pennsylvania State University; Ian Willison, University of London; Michael Winship, University of Texas; and Kate Wittenberg, Columbia University Press.
In addition to John Cole and Mary Levering, the Library of Congress was represented by Carol Armbruster, European Division; Alice Birney, Manuscript Division, and Director of Publishing W. Ralph Eubanks.
A conference highlight was the release, by the Book Industry Study Group, of A Guide to Book Publishers' Archives, a survey of 20th century American publishers' archives compiled by Arizona State University's Scholarly Publishing Program under the direction of Beth Luey. The 144-page guide, which describes thxe archival collections of more than 600 publishers and presses, is available for $25 -- and free to BISG members. For information contact BISG at (212) 929-1393 (telephone), or (212) 989-7542 (fax).
LC Book History Guide Still Available
Alice D. Schreyer's The History of Books: A Guide to Selected Resources in the Library of Congress, a 221-page cloth-bound volume sponsored by the Center for the Book and published by the Library of Congress in 1987, is available for $15 in the LC Sales Shop. This well-illustrated volume describes collections for the study of the Western printed book throughout the Library of Congress and serves as an introduction to the range of inquiry encompassed by the field of book history and to the diverse types of resources that can support research in the field. For information call (202) 707-0201.