February 23, 2007

Dear Fellow Members,

I am writing to give the details of our next annual meeting. It will take place on Friday, March 23, 2007, at 4:00 p.m. in the auditorium of the Harrison Institute/Small Special Collections Library. Following a brief business meeting, we will hear a talk by Christian Dupont entitled "Collecting Dante in Tuscany: A Bibliographical Tour." Christian is the Director of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at UVa. Before taking up that position, he was Director of the Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University, and he had previously been Curator for Special Collections at the University of Notre Dame. He has been active in professional library organizations and as a writer and lecturer on bookish subjects. We are delighted to welcome him as our speaker for our third meeting in the auditorium of the building where he presides over Virginia's great special collections. Following his talk, there will be reception in the Staff Lounge on the first floor of Alderman Library.

In the business part of the meeting, preceding Christian's talk, we shall vote on the re-election of Terry Belanger to the Council, for a term ending in 2014. Terry, as you know, is the founder and the director of the internationally renowned Rare Book School at Virginia, an activity for which he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2005. He is a University Professor at Virginia and also Honorary Curator of Special Collections, and he teaches courses in several departments as in Rare Book School. His service on our Council has been of immense help to the Society, and we are fortunate that he is willing to stand for re-election.

As is our custom, we have scheduled our meeting to fall during the Virginia Festival of the Book. This year's Festival, the 13th, runs from March 21 through 25, and its roster of programs can be seen on its webste, at <www.vabook.org>. We hope that the listing of our meeting there will encourage interested nonmembers who are attending the Festival to come to our meeting as well. And we hope that many of our out-of-town members will find more reasons to come to Charlottesville at that time, because there will be many events to attract them.

Since the time of our last meeting, a new volume of Studies in Bibliography, the 56th, was published. Each volume of this distinguished journal sets a high standard, as everyone in the book world knows, but this one, in my view, is unusually distinguished with important contributions in editorial theory, descriptive and analytical bibliography, publishing history, and the history of appear, plus two basic articles on what is now called "book history" (focusing on books in society). This volume is historic in another way as well: it is the last of our volume to be printed from metal type, and quite possibly one of the last books to be printed in this country from Linotype. The society has had a long relationship with Heritage Printers of Charlotte, North Carolina, but that firm (now Crayton-Heritage) is going out of the letterpress business. Since one of the Society's concerns is the history of printing, we have taken pride in being able to continue presenting our journal in letterpress, but that is no longer possible, and, like all other journals, Studies in Bibliography will henceforth be printed from electronic text-composition. We hope, however, that the volumes you receive in the future will look just the same, except that there will be not bite of type in the paper. Many of the employees of the Heritage firm over the years have taken special interest in Studies in Bibliography and our other publications. I want to single out one, Hazel Hathcock, for her extraordinary devotion and loyalty; we extend our gratitude to her for her many efforts on our behalf.

For seeing to it that the contents of Studies in Bibliography maintain their high level year after year, we are profoundly indebted to David Vander Meulen, our editor, and to Elizabeth Lynch, his assistant; I cannot imagine that any journal is edited with more thoughtful care than they bring to the publication of SB. They also supervise the electronic publications available on the Society's website, at <http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/bsuva><>. We are grateful as well to David Seaman for his advice on electronic matters, which has allowed us to have such a flourishing electronic publishing program.

Each new volume of Studies is distributed by the University of Virginia Press, and the Society's Secretary-Treasurer has a limited supply of most earlier volumes. All the Society's other publications in print (including our most recent books, published in late 2005, Gordon Ray's The Art Deco Book in France and my Textual Criticism since Greg) are available from Oak Knoll Books. Let me remind you that members of the Society who identify themselves will be given a 10% discount. If you don't receive Oak Knoll catalogues and would like to, 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>. Oak Knoll's complete catalogue can also be browsed at <www.oakknoll.com>.

I've already mentioned several members of the Council, but now I want thank them all as a group for their loyal service to the Society: Ruthe Battestin, Terry Belanger, Kathryn Morgan, David Seaman, David Vander Meulen, and Karin Wittenborg. I also want to give special thanks to our Secretary-Treasurer, Anne Ribble, who keeps the Society's affairs in order with congenial efficiency and good sense; we are extremely fortunate to have her working with us.

Let me, finally, repeat what merits repeating each year. The Society, like all scholarly organizations at present, needs more membership support. I hope all of you will publicize the Society and the importance of its work, especially its active publication program, both in printed and in electronic form. And when your membership-renewal form comes, I hope you will consider increasing the level of your membership. On behalf of the Council, I thank all of you for your support. I look forward to seeing many of you at the annual meeting, and I send best wishes to you all.