The Society promotes research in physical and textual bibliography and the history of the written word.

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Broadsheet No. 121 is here!

We are delighted to release number 121 of the Society’s newsletter, Broadsheet. As you’ll immediately notice, this issue has a new look with an updated format, designed by Broadsheet‘s digital and publication designer, Claire Summerville. 

This number brings together reports from last year’s very successful conference, Transformations, articles from BSANZ members, exciting information about new and occasional publications and opens with another of the President, Simon Farley’s eloquent letters. 

As always, many thanks to everyone who has contributed ideas, suggestions, writing and feedback to Broadsheet. Our aim is to support the BSANZ community by recording and sharing some of the Society’s many and varied activities. 

Happy reading!

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CONFERENCE MICRO-SITE

Bibliomania: Stories from Inside and Outside the Book

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of our new microsite dedicated to this year’s BSANZ conference: Bibliomania: Stories from Inside and Outside the Book. Visit here to register and to access more information and updates on the conference.

Bibliomania week is finally here!

You can still register to attend, in-person or online, the wide-ranging program of talks at “Bibliomania: Stories from Inside and Outside the Book,” the BSANZ 2024 Annual Conference.

The program is a testament to the breadth and depth of the book scholarship field in Australia and New Zealand: From medieval manuscripts, to book binding, to collections and collectors, to musical manuscripts, to making miniature books, to Arabic texts, to censorship, to Australian literature, to books that arrived with the First Fleet, to braille publishing, risograph printing, crime novels and meditations on book ownership – and more. There is something for everyone!

Wed 4th – Thur 5th December 2024

National Library of Australia or Online

For the full program and registrations: https://bibliomaniabsanz.com/

Non-conference attendees are also invited to join us for our 2 free public keynotes:

Keynote 1: Stack Stories: retired rare book curators reflect https://www.nla.gov.au/…/stack-stories-retired-rare…

Keynote 2: Michael Visontay, The Bookbreaker of New York: a ripping yarn: https://www.nla.gov.au/…/bookbreaker-new-york-ripping-yarn

Please like and share with your friends and colleagues.

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Image: National Library of Australia, Book stacks in the Hume Repository, 2023

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2024 

BIBLIOMANIA: STORIES FROM INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE BOOK 

National Library of Australia (and online)

Canberra, Australia  4–5 December 2024 

Call for Papers 

Mass-printed or bespoke, digital or physical, books convey information. They are also objects with stories to tell beyond their text, particularly in their physical form. Inside and outside, they carry traces of those stories. They may tell us about the people and technologies that made them, or the people whose hands they have passed through. They take on lives of their own.    

The 2024 BSANZ Conference will focus on the topic of the stories behind the book, including but not limited to: 

• the book as object;  
• book production and bindings; 
• book collectors and collections; 
• booksellers and bookselling; 
• users and readers of books and the evidence of those activities; 
• the afterlives of books: circulation, distribution and dispersal;  
• digital access to books: advantages, challenges and beyond; 
• preservation and conservation of books; and 
• areas relating more broadly to bibliography and book history. 

The Organising Committee for the 2024 BSANZ Conference cordially invites papers that address the conference themes.   

The conference will be a hybrid conference, though BSANZ and the National Library of Australia would love to welcome you in person, if that is possible for you. In-person activities and a conference dinner are planned.

Details:

• Participants may present their papers online;
• All sessions will be livestreamed; and
• All sessions will be recorded for upload to the BSANZ YouTube channel in due course, with the presenters’ consent.  

Each paper should be 20 minutes long. (We will allow 10 minutes for discussion afterwards.) We also welcome panel submissions.  

Please send your 200–300 word abstract, as well as your paper title, your name, institution (if applicable), contact details, and an up to 100-word biography marked attention Dr Susannah Helman to: bsanzconference2024@gmail.com 

Please note that all conference presenters must be BSANZ members: http://www.bsanz.org/membership

Keynote speakers: To be advised 

Abstracts are due: 31 July 2024 

The National Library of Australia acknowledges Australia’s First Nations Peoples – the First Australians – as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of this land and gives respect to the Elders – past and present – and through them to all Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

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Latest Issue of Script & Print— Vol. 46 No. 4 2022

New Occasional Publication

BSANZ is very pleased to announce the publication of a new Occasional Publication .

Carlo Dumontet Collation, Reference Notation, & Statement of Signing 109pp. ISBN: 9780645666229. AUD$25 Members AUD$20 Non-members. Please add $A15 per order for postage and handling within Australia, and A$25 per order for postage and handling to any other destination.

This workbook discusses the various techniques which can be employed in book collation writing in order to provide readers with the capacity to construct collations and to interpret published ones. W.W. Greg’s and Fredson Bowers’s approach is discussed in depth, together with Thomas Tanselle’s view on how to handle inserted leaves. Upon this Greg-Bowers-Tanselle bedrock other possible solutions are also discussed. The exposition relies on a large number of examples and also on some exercises in order to render this workbook as practical a tool as possible. This workbook will be an invaluable guide for students of bibliography, early printed books cataloguers, and booksellers, but it is hoped that all those engaged in collation-writing may find it a useful reference tool.

Please contact Amanda Laugesen (amanda.laugesen@anu.edu.au) to arrange payment by bank transfer or to organise a Paypal invoice.

Journal