From the Editor

Less than three weeks after assuming the position of Editor, I am pleased to present the first issue of The Standard for 2013, and to rededicate it as the voice of IOBA. This is meant in a dual sense: as our “house organ,” The Standard serves to represent our organization’s values, goals and concerns; but more than that, it should also provide an outlet for individual IOBA members to share their experience and knowledge with both colleagues and interested readers.

Part of what made it possible to bring this issue together in such a short time was a significant change to our editorial structure and management. At the instigation of IOBA’s new President, Chris Volk, the Board of Directors has decided to transfer some of the technical/production responsibilities to the newly-created domain of a Managing Editor. Joyce Godsey, an experienced bookseller and the proprietor of Sicpress.com (well known to many as a premier source for book repair supplies), has been engaged as our Managing Editor, and we’re very glad to have her on board.

Although I didn’t approach the assembling of this issue with any particular theme in mind, in looking over the contributions it seems that we have one anyway. There is a common thread that unites all the articles, one to which I think almost any IOBA member can relate: the sense of discovery, which is one of the constants of the bookselling experience. The longer pieces, by Greg Gibson and Chris Volk, relate their personal journeys: Greg’s somewhat quixotic passage from unpublished poet (with intermittent employment history) to experienced specialist bookseller, and Chris’s diversionary adventure as she unleashed her “inner collector” in pursuit of the books of a favorite author. Standing in contrast to Chris’s tale of her Internet-scouring quest, Tim Doyle’s tightly-focused account of how he solved a small biblio-mystery provides a perfect example of the kind of thing that can so easily fascinate or even obsess us….and that any one of us might find at any time, inside the cover of the very next book we handle. Finally, William Knox’s tale of establishing his thriving book business in Penang, Malaysia, provides a particularly interesting example of the diverse (and sometimes peculiar) ways that we have all come to bookselling.

For the time being I find myself planted in the Editor’s chair, but I don’t regard it as either a throne or a bully pulpit. I see myself rather as sitting at a very large table, with enough room for as many others as care to join me. It is, as I said above, both the organization’s voice and your voice as individuals — although truly, the two are inseparable. The IOBA is its members. Together, let’s make The Standard everything it can be and should be.

Howard Prouty ReadInk 2261 West 21st Street Los Angeles, California

The IOBA Standard 2.0

Welcome to the first all-new issue of The Standard in nearly three years. As I mentioned in our previous issue, The Standard, for a variety of reasons, was on an unfortunate and extended hiatus. But no more. For this Fall issue we present articles we hope will be useful and interesting to the membership, as well as to other booksellers and bibliophiles. From dealer discounts to African bookstores, book reviews to member profiles, business concept to business titans, our hope is that this issue is indicative of the scope and quality of the coverage The Standard will carry going forward.

And I say “we” and “our” intentionally, as the Standard you read and see here was and is very much a group effort. First and foremost, this has been the result of the newly-formed Standard staff, who in addition to penning articles have provided guidance, feedback, proofreading and other much-needed support as we’ve relaunched The Standard. I thank them all for their help and energies, and take this opportunity to introduce them to the readership:

Craig Harris of Bridge of Dreams John Howell of John Howell for Books Chris Lowenstein of Book Hunter’s Holiday Kara McLaughlin Mestre of Little Sages Books Joe Perlman of Mostly Useful Fictions Howard Prouty of Readink William Smith of Hang Fire Books Alice Voith of My Wings Books Justin Woolley of Salopian Books Vic Zoschak of Tavistock Books

My goal, as much as practical, was to gather a staff that could not only write clearly and knowledgeably, but to assemble a group that would also reflect the diversity of the IOBA. And so there are men and women, full and part timers, bookshop owners and online-only, specialists and generalists, relative newcomers and well-established colleagues. I welcome them and look forward to working with them.

But success of The Standard does not rest with the staff or myself alone. There are the members who contribute article, reports, and profiles. There are our readers. There are the many volunteers throughout our organization who in countless small ways support our efforts here. The Standard is the newsletter of the entire IOBA and my hope is that others, ideally many others, will get involved. If you would like to write an article (or even if you just have an idea for an article), if you would like to pen a member profile, or if you think you might even want to be part of the staff, please drop me a line. But getting involved need not entail so large a commitment. Leave a comment on an article. Write a letter to the editor. Link to us on your blog or website. Tell others about The Standard. Or simply keep reading.

Welcome.

Looking Forward, Looking Back

With this issue, I happily and proudly assume the editorship of the IOBA’s (long neglected) Standard. And with our first new installment in more than two years, we also begin the tenth volume of The Standard, one that unveils what I hope will be only the beginning of many improvements to our august publication. But as with many things, before we can go forward, it helps to look back.

In the last two years, the IOBA has matured. Where in years past our membership directory did not always reflect current information, our rolls are now accurate. Though it appeared for a time that our numbers are shrinking, membership has stabilized and again begun to grow. Renewal efforts have been streamlined. And through the continued efforts of the Membership Committee (on which in the interest of full disclosure I serve), requirements and standards for admittance to our organization have been raised and enforced, resulting in a stronger IOBA. A mentorship program has been put in place to nurture upcoming booksellers. Committees are more established, members more involved. IOBAbooks.com has been launched. In short, I suspect that when the history of the IOBA is written, these last couple of years will be seen as a turning point where our rather ad-hoc group became a more established institution, one with its own particular culture and strengths. This progress is in no small part the results of the leadership of both our former and current president – Shawn Purcell and Karin Isgur Bergsagel – as well as countless hours of work from dozens of volunteer members.

One unfortunate casualty of these more important and pressing priorities, however, has been our quarterly newletter, The IOBA Standard. For the last two plus years it has been – unofficially and for a variety of reasons (some of them admittedly my own) – on extended hiatus. This is a shame, as The Standard was in many ways the public face of the IOBA and its best source of promotion and publicity. It is therefore with great pleasure that I introduce the redesigned and revamped Standard.

The first and most evident improvement is the design. The Standard has been moved to a WordPress system. This will allow for a more streamlined and simple publication process and make any future upgrades or redesigns significantly easier. Indeed, the fairly basic design and functionality you currently see here will continue to be improved as we go along. I welcome comments and suggestions for continued improvements. In addition, right now, only the past three issues (comprising most of Volume IX) are online in the new format. Other past issues will be added in reverse chronological order on an ongoing basis. And in the meantime the complete archive is available (and will continue for the foreseeable future to be available) here.

The second and less obvious improvement to The Standard is a regular editorial staff and group of contributing writers. I have tried to gather a diverse group, representing both newer and more established dealers, both men and women, from a variety of locales and specializing in a variety of books. It is my hope that this group of regular participants will bring a new vitality and authority to The Standard. In order to keep this foreword as brief as possible, I will introduce the staff fuller detail with our next issue. But in the meantime, if you would like to get involved with writing and publishing The Standard, either in an on-going or short-term capacity, please get in touch. We would be happy to have you.

So we look to the future – a new design, new personnel. But we also for this issue look to the past. Many new members have joined over the last two years, a good portion of which I suspect, are under-aware of our newsletter. Likewise, for much of our membership, The Standard has perhaps faded from memory. This is why for this rebirth of The Standard, we have put together a “best-of” issue, gathering some of the most interesting and useful pieces The Standard has published since it began in 1999.

We also finally publish several articles and profiles that have been sitting in the pipeline during our unfortunate hiatus. I offer my apologies to these writers for the delay in their pieces appearing. They – and the other members of the IOBA – have my assurance that it will not happen again, that The Standard will assume a prominent role in our growing and increasingly vital group.

With appreciation to those who have contributed in the past and looking forward to what we’ll do in our coming issues,

Brian Cassidy – Editor, The IOBA Standard