February 28, 2000

Dear Fellow Member,

It's time, once again, to inform you of our next annual meeting. We are holding it--as we have done several times before--during the Virginia Festival of the Book so that members of the Society who are not resident in Charlottesville will have the opportunity to visit at a time when they can take in various of the Festival events as well as the Society's gathering.

Our meeting will be held on Friday, March 24, at 4:00 p.m. in the McGregor Room of Alderman Library. At that time, following a brief business session, we will hear a talk on "Book Design in the Twentieth Century" by Johanna Drucker, who holds the Robertson Chair in Media Studies at the University of Virginia. She is at present one of the most widely known writers and lecturers on letterforms, typography, and book design, dealing with these subjects from the point of view of art history, book history, critical theory, and psychology. Her books, which include The Visible Word (1994) and The Alphabetic Labyrinth (1995), have been extensively praised, and her move to Virginia last year enhances still further the university's already celebrated strength in the study of books as physical objects. Following her lecture, there will be a recept! in the Book Arts Press rooms in Alderman Library.

In the business part of the meeting, preceding the talk, we shall vote on the re-election of Terry Belanger to the Council, for a term ending in 2007. As you know, Terry is the director of the Book Arts Press and the Rare Book Book School (among other book-world activities), and his advice and assistance are invaluable to the Society. His current term ends with this year's annual meeting, and the Nominating Committee made an obviously wise decision in proposing that he be re-elected for another seven-year term.

Our meeting is listed by the Virginia Festival of the Book as one of its events and will, we hope, attract visitors who are attending other Festival programs. We also hope that you will find additional activities of interest on the Festival schedule. If you would like more information ab! the Festival (this year's is the sixth annual one), which runs from March 22 through 26, you may phone 804-924-6890 or visit the Festival's website at www.vabook.org. Over two hundred authors are scheduled to participate in the various sessions.

In last year's letter, I informed you that we had just arranged for our publications to be handled by Oak Knoll Books, and I can now tell you that this arrangement has worked well during the past year and has caused an increase in our sales, not only of recent books but of earlier ones as well. You should all have received a special mailing from Oak Knoll a few months ago, and many of you are no doubt on the mailing list to receive the full catalogue from Oak Knoll Press, which contains over five hundred titles relating to book history. If you are not on Oak Knoll's mailing list and would like to be, just write to 310 Delaware Street, New Castle, Delaware 19720; or phone 302-328-7232 or 1-800-996-2556; or fax 302-328-7274; or email oakknoll@oakknoll.com. Remember that when you order books published by the Society, you will receive a 10% discount if you identify yourself as a member. Oak Knoll's catalogue can also be browsed at www.oakknoll.com.

The big news of last year, which took place just before last year's annual meeting and was announced at that meeting, was the decision by John Casteen, president of the university, to make a grant to the Society. This gesture acknowledged the contribution that our publications have made to the scholarly world; it also recognized that we made a financial sacrifice in order to pla! on the World Wide Web, free of charge to all users, the full text of the entire run of Studies in Bibliography (the Society's website is http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/bsuva/). The president understands that the Society is thus linked to two of the areas in which the university is preeminent: bibliographical scholarship and the distribution of texts in electronic form. Althou! the Society has previously been supported by the university in the form of office space and a portion of the editor's time, the president's action is the first time the Society has received significant monetary support from the administration, and it is a turning-point in the Society's history.

Now there is further good news of the same kind: the Alumni Board of Trustees recently approved a commitment from the President's Contingent Fund for three annual grants in support of the Society's activities, beginning with the present academic year. With this assistance, the Society will be in a financial position not only to ensure the continued publication of Studies in Bibliography but also to push ahead with its active publishing program. For their leading roles i! bringing about these developments, the Society owes profound thanks to Ruthe Battestin and David Vander Meulen.

I also want to express my thanks, on behalf of the Society, to all the Council members and their associates, who have been generous of their time in helping the Society during the past year. I have already mentioned Ruthe Battestin, Terry Belanger, and David Vander Meulen; but I should add, in regard to David, that as vice president he has helped the Society in innumerable (and time-consuming) ways that go beyond his exemplary editing of Studies in Bibliography. Let me here also record the indebtedness of all of us to councilors Kathryn Morgan, David Seaman, and Karin Wittenborg; to our faithful Secretary-Treasurer Penelope Weiss; and to the Society's editorial assistant, Elizabeth Lynch, who does a great many things besides being an editorial assistant--such as, this year, working with Oak Knoll regarding the proper listing of our titles.

On behalf of the Council, I thank you all for your support and hope you will urge others interested in bibliography and book history to join our Society.

With all good wishes.