Past conferences

Conference 2024

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2024 

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

BIBLIOMANIA: STORIES FROM INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE BOOK 

National Library of Australia (and online)

Canberra, Australia  4–5 December 2024 

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

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.

Conference 2023

TRANSFORMATION: BIBLIOGRAPHY & PRINT IN THE DIGITAL AGE

The impact of the digital on the way we study print artefacts, including the book, has been phenomenal. It has allowed us to access so much more information about our objects of study, from the provenance of book and manuscript collections, to biographical information about authors, publishers, and booksellers, to distribution, advertising, and reception. It has also transformed how we might communicate the rich stories of our bibliographical history research and collections. Social media, blogs, online lectures and conferences, exhibitions, and digitised copies of collections linked to catalogue records and interfaces such as NLA’s TROVE database are now the chief means of communicating quickly to audiences and communities. 

Our BSANZ conference this year will engage with the topic of TRANSFORMATION. We welcome papers that address the theme of transformation in any context, including the digital.

We are pleased to announce that registrations for our 2023 conference are now open. The conference will be held on 27 to 28 November ONLINE. 

View the Conference program here

Please follow this link to the EventBrite site where you can register.

If you have any questions about the conference or problems with registration, please email the conference team at bsanzconference2023@gmail.com

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BSANZ Annual Conference 2022: Embellished

Conference Webpage: https://web.archive.org/web/20240224011243/https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/research-and-collections/research-and-engagement/embellished

The BSANZ Annual Conference 2022: Embellished was held in conjunction with the State Library of New South Wales on location and online from Monday 28 to Tuesday 29 November, 2022. 

The program explored the concept of embellishment in all its forms, be that the embellishing of the physical object, the presentation of that object to the public or the truth that surrounds the object or its creator. 

The illustrious keynote speakers were: 

 – Michelle P. Brown, FSA, Professor Emerita of Medieval Manuscript Studies, University of London (School of Advanced Study)

 – Peter Lyssiotis – writer, maker of films, photographs, photomontages, prints and books. (See video of his presentation below)

Attendees were engaged by the presentations of 27 learned Society members on the themes:

Readers embellishing pages
The Emmerson collection
Art of embellishment
Embracing embellishment
Embellished words 
Reading, listing and collecting the embellished
Scholarly editing
Early embellishments
Types of embellishment 

The BSANZ thanks the Conference Organising Committee for a splendid occasion that was the highlight of the scholarly book year: 

  • Chair: Maggie Patton, Manager, Research & Discovery, State Library of NSW
  • Dr Rachel Franks, Coordinator, Scholarship, State Library of NSW
  • Rebekah Ward, PhD Candidate and Sessional Academic, Western Sydney University
  • Sarah Morley, Curator, research & Discovery, State Library of NSW
  • Simon Farley, Vice-President BSANZ, Fryer Librarian, The University of Queensland
  • Paige Wright, Special Collections Librarian at University of Newcastle Library

Our warmest thanks to the presenters who agreed to share videos of their presentations below:

2021 conference

Communities, books and the power of words

The conference will be hosted online from Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand on 22-23 November 2021.

For all up-to-date information and registration, visit the conference website: www.bsanz2021.org/ .

We are thrilled to announce our keynote speakers: Dr Hirini Kaa, of Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu and Rongowhakaata, an historian and Anglican minister, and Dr Sarah Werner, book historian and digital media scholar. Read more here.

  • The History of the Book and the Future of the World. Adelaide, 30 November – 2 December 2020
  • Tradition and Innovation: Readers, Books and Libraries. Melbourne, 28-29 November 2019 (PDF programme)
  • BSANZ 50 Years Commemoration. Melbourne, 26 February 2019 (PDF programme)
  • Marginalia: Bibliography at the Margins. Brisbane, 29-30 November 2018 (PDF programme).
  • Connecting the Colonies: Empires and Networks in the History of the Book. Hobart, 22-24 November 2017 (PDF programme).
  • Local Bibliography—The Deepening Stream. Hamilton. 21-22 November, 2016 (PDF draft programme).
  • Turning the Pages. Melbourne, 2015 (PDF programme).
  • Bibliographica. Canberra, 26-28 November 2014 (PDF programme).
  • Bibliography in the Digital Age. Sydney, 20-22 November 2013 (PDF programme).
  • Thinking Through Books. Dunedin, 14-17 November 2012 (PDF programme).
  • Textual Manipulation. Adelaide, 3-4 November 2011.
  • To Deprave and Corrupt: Forbidden, Hidden and Censored Texts. Melbourne, 14-16 July 2010 (PDF programme).
  • The Limits of the Book. Brisbane, 20-22 July 2009.
  • The European Book in the Antipodes. Sydney, 2-3 November 2008.
  • Spaces of Print: Exploring the History of Books. Hobart, 15-17 November 2007.
  • Leaving Impressions, Planting Ideas. Adelaide, 23-24 October 2006.
  • Paradise: New Worlds of Books and Readers. Wellington, 27-30 January 2005.
  • Hunters and Gatherers: Building Collections of Books. Melbourne, 16 October 2004.
  • Expanding Horizons: Print Cultures Across the South Pacific. Dunedin, 10 September 2002.
  • Art, Genius and Madness. Adelaide, 27-28 September 2001.
  • Bibliographica 2000. Melbourne, 16 November 2000.
  • Bibliography, Mystery, and Detection. Brisbane, 8-10 July 1999.
  • Bibliographica 1998. Melbourne, 13 November 1998.