Note from the Editor

We’re starting a series with this issue of interviews with all the online commercial databases (although we have previously interviewed ABE, Alibris, and Antiqbook individuallywe’ll redo these after a bit to update them).

In this issue, we have interviews from five of the newer databases (BookQuarters, Bibliology, Books & Collectibles, UsedBookCentral, and BiblioDirect)we’ve asked the same questions of each, so you’ll be able to compare answers from them and see where they differ on philosophy and technical issues. In our next Standard, we hope to have interviews from several more. We’ll try to update these yearly for you (if not sooner, if there are changes) so that you’ll have a ready reference.

We have fascinating interviews in this issue with Lynn DeWeese-Parkinson, the Grand Poobah of the Bibliophile list and officer of a new commercial database, and from Sam Gottlieb–author, book fair owner, and bookseller.

We also have a story of something we can all relate to as booksellers from our Australian colleague, Pete Mitchell, more details on the IOBA/ABE upcoming search function and IOBA’s advertising in Firsts Magazine from Len LanFranco, a more complete report on the IOBA seminar held by Vic Zoschak in California late last fall (from Vic and all the attendees), a great report on the L.A. Book Fair from Greg Williams, and a very informative Q&A section.

And finally, we have short statements from each of IOBA’s newly elected officers and board members, and a report on election results from IOBA’s secretary.

We still need more of you to volunteer to write articles or do interviewsplease contact me at any time at aaabooks@azalea.net

Happy reading!!

Shirley Bryant