FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY OFFERS BOOK-COLLECTING EXPERTS

Are your shelves overflowing with books on your favorite topic? Or do you wish they were?

The Friends of the Bryn Mawr College Library are sponsoring a daylong introduction to the nuts and bolts of book collecting on Saturday, Oct. 30, in Wyndham Alumnae House.

Experts will offer advice on everything you need to know to become an accomplished book collector, from how to track down hard-to-find pieces to how to care for your treasures and how to find out how much your books are worth. There will even be an appraisal session, at which David Bloom, vice-president for books, prints and manuscripts at Freeman's Auctions in Philadelphia, will offer verbal estimates of the value of books that participants bring in for review.

The program will also include a panel discussion on the basics of book collecting. The panelists are Steven Rothman, an ardent book collector and president of the Philobiblon Club of Philadelphia, and two prominent rare-book dealers in the Philadelphia area: Cynthia Davis Buffington of The Philadelphia Rare Books and Manuscripts Company; and Janet Miller of An Uncommon Vision.

Shelly Smith, a book conservator at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia, will follow the panel discussion with a session titled "Book Conservation for Collectors." Prior to coming to Philadelphia, Smith was a book conservator at the Huntington Library near Los Angeles, and worked as a conservator at the University of North Carolina and the Smithsonian Institution.

The keynote speaker for the day will be Priscilla Juvelis, one of the country's most eminent book dealers, speaking on women as book collectors. Based in Cambridge, Mass., Juvelis specializes in women's history and 20th-century book arts, and she is a past president of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America.

All events except a luncheon in the restaurant at Wyndham are free to Bryn Mawr students. Cost of the event for the general public is $25, which covers lunch and up to five book appraisals. For registration information, please call the Special Collections Department, Bryn Mawr College Library, 610-526-6576, or see the event Web site, http://www.brynmawr.edu/library/bookcollecting.shtml.

<<Back to Bryn Mawr Now 10/21/2004

>>Next Story