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March 3, 1999
Dear Fellow Member,
Once again we are holding our annual meeting during the Virginia Festival of the Book so that members of the Society who are not resident in Charlottesville may find it attractive to travel to Charlottesville 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 26, at 4:00 p.m. in the McGregor Room of Alderman Library. At that time, following a brief business session, we will hold another in our series of programs featuring short papers by current Virginia graduate students who are working in the general area of bibliographical and textual studies. The program will consist of the following papers:
These speakers will be introduced by Stephen Ramsay, a Ph.D. candidate who is on the staff of the Electronic Text Center. Following the papers, there will be a reception in the Book Arts Press rooms in Alderman Library.
In the business part of the meeting before the papers, we shall vote on the election of one member of the Council for a term ending in 2006. The term of Kendon Stubbs, our Vice President, ends as of our 1999 meeting, and he has decided not to stand for re-election because of several electronic projects that will be taking up more of his time in the future. His departure will be a great loss to the Society, for he has played a crucial role in its operation, indeed its survival, over a period of thirty-three years, serving as its president from 1974 to 1978 and its vice president since then. He addressed the Society's problems with sympathetic concern and practical advice, and it is easy for us to understand how this ability, exercised many times over on behalf of many parts of the university community, earned him the Thomas Jefferson Award last year. We offer him our deepest thanks for his contributions to this Society, and we wish him well in his future endeavors. To fill the Council slot he has vacated, the Nominating Committee proposes the election of David Vander Meulen, whose work on behalf of the Society goes far beyond the editing of Studies. (David, by the way, reliquished his earlier term on the Council two years ago to allow the election of David Seaman, so that the Electronic Text Center would be represented).
It is appropriate that our meeting, given the Society's interests, is a part of the Virginia Festival of the Book, which runs from March 24th through March 28th. A long roster of prominent writers--including Alice McDermott, this year's National Book Award winner for fiction--will participate in one or another of the many sessions scheduled. For further information about the Festival, you may phone 804-924-3296 or visit the Festival's Website at www.vabook.org.
During the past year, the Society has published two books in addition to the 1998 volume of Studies in Bibliography. These books, announced in my annual letter a year ago, are The Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia: The First Fifty Years, edited by David L. Vander Meulen, and a collection of my essays entitled Literature and Artifacts. You have all received brochures describing the contents of these two books. And you have received the latest volume of Studies and have seen that David Vander Meulen has once again assembled an important group of essays of the quality we have come to expect. We all owe him our profound gratitude for the devoted labor required for this annual achievement.
The other important news from the past year is that the Society has made new arrangements for the distribution of its monographs and the back volumes of Studies. Beginning immediately, these publications are to be ordered from Oak Knoll Press in New Castle, Delaware. As most of you know, Oak Knoll is not only the leading American antiquarian dealer in books about books but also a major publisher of books in this field; in the latter capacity, Oak Knoll now distributes the publications of a number of learned societies, including the Bibliographical Society of America and the American Antiquarian Society. Its catalogues list such major classics of bibliography as Bowers's Principles of Bibliographical Description, McKerrow's Introduction to Bibliography for Literary Students, Gaskell's A New Introduction to Bibliography, and Carter's ABC for Book Collectors. It seems particularly fitting that Bowers's book is now available (for the first time) from the same source as the publications of the Virginia society, in which he played such a prominent role. Oak Knoll does an excellent job of publicizing the books it publishes and distributes, and the bibliographical world now looks to Oak Knoll catalogues as a principal way of keeping up with new scholarship in the field. Our move to Oak Knoll therefore will give the Society's books wider exposure than ever before.
The way this new arrangement will affect members who wish to order the Society's books is as follows. First, regarding Studies in Bibliography: each new volume will continue to be published by the University Press of Virginia and will be sent without further charge, as before, to all members of the Society, and additional copies of the current volume can be obtained from the Press. All non-current volumes of Studies, now and in the future, will be handled by Oak Knoll Press and should be ordered from there at the prices announced in its catalogue. Second, all other publications: all the Society's monographic publications, which will be listed in Oak Knoll Press catalogues beginning with the one for Spring 1999, are henceforth to be ordered from that source (with the temporary exceptions to be noted below). Society members who identify themselves will receive a 10% discount. Oak Knoll's postal address is 310 Delaware Street, New Castle, DE 19720; the telephone is 302-328-7232 or 1-800-996-2556; the fax number is 302-328-7274; the email address is oakknoll@oakknoll.com; and the Website is www.oakknoll.com.
The temporary exceptions to this procedure are for the Society's two new books--the Vander Meulen history of the Society and Literature and Artifacts. Because our promotion of these two books was already well under way when we concluded our agreement with Oak Knoll, we have made a special arrangement with Oak Knoll whereby we can continue--through the summer of 1999--to fill any orders for these two books that are directed to us as a result of our mailings and our listings with electronic booksellers. (Oak Knoll will also be selling these books simultaneously through its catalogues, flyers, and Website.) What this means for members is that they can avail themselves of the previously announced 40% discount for these two books by ordering directly from the Society before the end of the coming summer. An order blank for these books is provided below.
I 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 Kendon Stubbs, and David Vander Meulen, though what I said above does not fully enumerate the many ways they have been of service. In addition, I want to thank the other Councillors (Ruthe Battestin, Terry Belanger, Kathryn Morgan, David Seaman, and Karin Wittenborg); our devoted and effective Secretary-Treasurer, Penelope Weiss, who has handled an additional burden this year in arranging the move of inventory to Oak Knoll; and the Society's editorial assistant, Elizabeth Lynch, who has spent countless hours convincing library jobbers to pay attention to our books, arranging for our books to be listed by electronic booksellers, and performing many other tasks not normally encompassed by the title of editorial assistant. As always, I urge all of you to encourage persons interested in the history of books to join our Society. And I send you, on behalf of the Council, all good wishes and many thanks for your support.
Yours sincerely,
G. Thomas Tanselle
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