IOBA's 25th Anniversary Virtual Book, Map, and Ephemera Fair (May 2-4, 2024)
Thu, May 02
|https://getmansvirtual.com/
The Independent Online Booksellers Association (IOBA) in conjunction with Getman's Virtual celebrates 25 Years of quality internet bookselling. IOBA kick's-off the celebration with a virtual fair featuring rare and collectible books, rare maps and ephemera May 2-4, 2024.


Time & Location
May 02, 2024, 12:00 AM – May 04, 2024, 11:59 PM
https://getmansvirtual.com/
About the Event
The Independent Online Booksellers Association Celebrates 25 Years
With a worldwide membership of over 350 independent sellers of rare, used, new books and
ephemera, the Independent Online Booksellers Association marks 25 years of work in 2024. The
IOBA is an international non-profit trade organization founded in 1999 to support ethical and
professional online bookselling.
For generations prior to the Internet, experienced book dealers had created accurate book
descriptions for use in catalogues, using agreed-upon terminology and recognized standards of
grading and passing this knowledge down. By 1999, there were online sellers copying the
language of professionals, often without knowing what it meant. Others didn't know enough
about the profession to be aware that any specialized terminology or standards existed. The
original founders of the IOBA saw a need to somehow translate this generational standard into
the online world.
To do so, the IOBA established and is dedicated to maintaining both a Book Buyers Bill of
Rights and a Code of Ethics for its members. The IOBA provides scholarships, education,
mentoring, and support to its members. Furthermore, it has an ethics committee to investigate
the rare complaints from people who buy from IOBA members.
Over the years and today, the IOBA continues to represent independent booksellers. The IOBA
formally challenged monopolistic companies like Amazon for its parity pricing pressure in the
EU, over a decade before the United States FTC anti-monopoly lawsuit filed in September of
2023. In September of 2023, in light of new censorship under the Texas Reader Act, the IOBA
formally endorsed the American Library Association’s Freedom to Read Statement.
For 2024, the organization launched a separate IOBA Foundation, a nonprofit, tax-exempt
institution “established for the purpose of providing continuing education for the worldwide
community of independent online booksellers, as well as to promote diversity in the trade
through scholarships and mentoring opportunities.”
Readers can find information on the IOBA’s continuing work, ethical bookselling, and
cautionary tales published in trade magazines
Caveat Emptor: or some thoughts on ethics and online book buying (finebooksmagazine.com) and on the IOBA website.
Virtual Fair Link: Book and Ephemera Fair Online (getmansvirtual.com)
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Point of Contact:
IOBA Vice President
Richard Erdmann
603-742-1229