“Rare Book School is like graduate school.”

In the world of antiquarian books, there’s no substitute for experience. Handling thousands of books over a long period of time helps one to develop a “sixth sense” about which books are worthwhile and why. When I started my business, I was just beginning to develop this “sixth sense”. I wasn’t fortunate enough to get my start in the trade working for a veteran bookseller. I get my experience on the job, as I create and gradually grow my business.

I’ve done many things to make up for my relative inexperience. I found a knowledgeable bookseller willing to mentor me. I shop for books in all kinds of venues (from library sales to book shops to house calls to dealer catalogues to book auctions) so I have a chance to see the range of conditions and the frequency with which certain books turn up on the market. I build relationships with other booksellers who don’t mind being asked for advice from time to time. I research and write about books. Three years ago, I attended the annual Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar. Last summer, I began taking classes at Rare Book School.

When I attended the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar during the summer of 2007, a man named Terry Belanger came to speak to our class. Terry Belanger founded Rare Book School in 1983 and was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (also known as a “genius grant”) in 2005. He spoke to our class a bit about printing and papermaking processes and had us enthralled from the beginning to the end of his lecture. He encouraged us to think about attending Rare Book School at University of Virginia.

“The Colorado Seminar, which gives a great overview of the trade, is like undergraduate school,” said another bookseller who was in Colorado with me. “Rare Book School is like graduate school.” I remembered that description and I wondered how I would know I was ready to attend “graduate school” for antiquarian booksellers.

With intensive, weeklong courses on such topics as Descriptive Bibliography, Introduction to the History of Typography, and History of the Book in America, Rare Book School allows students to delve deeply into very focused topics. Taught by some of the best in the field, the courses offer book collectors, librarians, booksellers, and anyone else interested in the field the chance to learn about many of the minute aspects of rare books. Rather than an overview of the trade, it presents an in-depth history of books and print and print culture.

As I began to acquire more and better books for sale, I realized that it was important to be able to properly identify books I considered buying and even more important to describe them accurately when I sold them. I wanted to know the difference between an etching and an engraving, between and aquatint and a mezzotint, between a photogravure and a photograph. It would be difficult to learn these things without seeing examples of each and without the explanation of an authority on the subject.

And that’s how, in 2009, I knew I was ready for some “graduate school” level experience and I applied to take Terry Belanger’s Course, Book Illustration Processes to 1900: I had reached the stage of enough experience in bookselling to know that there was still a lot I didn’t know.

It was my first visit to University of Virginia and to Rare Book School, and I was in for a treat. The beautiful campus, founded by Thomas Jefferson, is a true temple of learning. And the Rare Book School classrooms, at the back of a warren of hallways in the basement of the Alderman Library, seem to have come to life from the set of a movie about rare books. Our classroom was a bit removed from the rest of the library, a bit small and a bit cramped, but every inch is filled floor to ceiling with books and prints, printing presses and type specimens. It was the perfect setting to immerse oneself in learning about the processes of book illustration.

Each day, our class began with a discussion of the different printing processes used prior to 1900, largely following Bamber Gascoigne’s book, How to Identify Prints. (If you don’t have this book, I highly recommend it. Terry Belanger calls it “indispensable; both comprehensive and excellent.” It was one of the main textbooks for the course.)

It was good to receive instruction as to the chronology of illustration processes and the way each process worked, but what really made the class stand out was the instructor’s experience and use of dozens and dozens of real-life examples of each of the different types of printing processes. During the course of the week, I personally handled hundreds of prints, cards, leaves of books, books, and printing plates from all eras. Rare Book School, no doubt thanks to Terry Belanger’s efforts, has amassed an astounding collection that is used to teach.

Any good bookseller will tell you that there is no substitute for the experience of seeing and handling as many books of all kinds as you can. My visit to Rare Book School increased that experience for me exponentially. It can do the same for you, too.

DeWayne and Joan White, White Unicorn Books, Dallas, TX

Hi, Folks! We are White Unicorn Books. We are DeWayne (De) and Joan White of Dallas, Texas. We married in 1995 but we had know each other all our lives. De brought a mother and 20,000 books into the marriage. I brought a mother, a couple of sisters, five children, many grandchildren, many, many great grandchildren, and several thousand other relatives De had not seen in a long time. My favorite tale is when we sent out our wedding invitations. We used a picture of us when we were 6 years old. One of my granddaughters said “How did they get the picture to look like both of you?” I said “It is us – that is a picture of us when we were 6 years old.” She said “Yes, but how did they get the picture to look like both of you?”

We started our bookstore in November, 2001. Because of 9/11 I took an early retirement and decided to start trying to sell the duplicates in De’s collection of 40 years – with his permission, of course. We had about 20,000 books to start. I thought that would last, like forever. I had no idea how fast you can go through books.

De has a fine collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy. So my first exposure to book history is in the SF&F field and I must say I fell in love with them immediately. The art work is so exciting. No other genre has such exciting art work. I soon learned that the dust jacket or the paperback covers are worth nearly as much as the book. Frank Frazetta, Virgil Finlay, Frank Utpatel, Jeff Jones, Michael Mariano, Stephen Fabian, Darrell Sweet, Paul Bacon and, of course, The Brothers Hildebrandt are but a few of my favorites.

We like to think of ourselves as one of the types of used book stores we visited and corresponded with when we were younger. In that day and time, there really was no question about who was responsible for the book(s) after it left the dealer and before it got to the customer. The dealer was – period! Insurance? If the book were really hard to replace, the dealer might insure the book. But the customer? Never. Well, I should never say never. If the customer wanted the book insured, he would generally mention it in the letter – yes, this was before the days of the Internet, but we started young. The dealer and customer might split the cost or the dealer might decide to insure it anyway as a service to the customer.

In the “old” days, sometimes a customer was disappointed in the book after they received it. Again, no questions by the dealer, the dealer took it back and refunded the customers money. If the dealer was at fault, say he had inadvertently mis-described the book, he also paid postage both ways. Otherwise the customer paid postage both ways. In fact, some books were just sent on approval. Now isn’t that a strange concept.

We joined the IOBA pretty darn soon after it started. It is a great organization. We have been committee members for a number of years. We proudly display the IOBA logo on our site and in our email tags.

When we first started our greatest asset was De’s computer experience. I had down the basics – like typing, and getting around on the web – but he has written computer code for many a year. So when he retired in 2005 he started really helping with all the computer stuff. Like creating a web-site, adding pages and pages, teaching me all the bells and whistles of BookTrakker, etc., etc., etc.

We now have 4 storage units full of books and approximately 9,000 currently on line. Our only problem is getting more books listed. My sister was doing a superb job of listing books and we were really moving along but she cannot list anymore and we are falling far behind in that department.

Like most on-line booksellers we have to really watch sitting at the computer for long periods of time. It is amazing that suddenly the day is gone and we have been there all day long. So we have bought the Wii games. That way we can break for a game or two of bowling or tennis every few hours. Its not as much exercise as the ‘real’ thing but it really is a very good exercise program and lots of fun so the exercise does not seem like work.

When you get some time, come on over and cruise around our web-site. Look over on the left side bar or at our Mini Site Map: whiteunicornbooks.com

If you like what you see, lets us know. You might even encourage De to start writing again, and add even more pages.

DeWayne and Joan White, White Unicorn Books info@WhiteUnicornBooks.com White Unicorn 323 South Montclair Avenue Dallas, TX 75208

Terry Gibbs, Gibbs Books, Williamsville, NY

I started as a book dealer quite by accident back in the 1980s. As a collector of photography and other interesting item from Automobiles (Thunderbirds) to you name it I’ve have collected it. I have always had a passion for photography starting at an early age taking photos of what I thought was a good shot ( then finding out later it wasn’t) I don’t stand behind the camera anymore. I’ve been a collector of photography and art starting full force around 1988.

Now getting back to book dealing, I needed to fine more information on what and who I was collecting so I started buying reference books on the arts. One day I got a call from a photographer that wanted to sell off all his books and cameras, I walked into over three hundred books some technical most monographic high end editions, that day I bought all the guy had. The best way to buy book collections is to make the offer and buy it all at one time good and bad together. After that I was getting calls from other photographers, artist, lawyers for deceased book collector/dealer estates and retiring university professors. This feed my photographic and Art Collections fine but soon I had doubles edition and books that I didn’t need so I started selling books.

Then in 1997 I went on-line as a book dealer selling out of print and new photography and art books. Back then all you had to do was list it and it sold with in days, now with so many sellers and listing sites you have to be good at what you do and very patient to sell at the right price.

Something about myself , I’m a master carpenter by trade and owner of a wholesale hardware company that specializes in windows parts and insulated window glass that we sell to Housing Authorities, Commercial & Apartment companies, State and Federal properties. I no longer physically build building only doing consulting in the building energy (windows) field. I’m married to Marci my wife of 37 years. Marci is a professional photographer and artist we have one son.

I’m always available for question on photography if I can help please email me at Terry@GibbsBooks.com and please go to my web site at : www.GibbsBooks.com and take a look . If you are an photographic artist please send over your work I like to show other people’s photo art work.

Terry Gibbs

info@GibbsBooks.com T.A.Gibbs Books PO  Box 102 Williamsville, NY 14231-0102