The Biblio File hosted by Nigel Beale

Richard Ovenden ​has been ​Bodley’s Librarian (the senior executive position of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford) since 2014. ​He is a ​ Fellow​ at the​ Society of Antiquaries and Royal Society of Arts; ​a ​​member​ of the American Philosophical Society; Treasurer, ​at ​the Consortium of European Research Libraries; ​and ​President​ ​of ​the Digital Preservation Coalition. ​He was ​​awarded the OBE by The Queen in 2019.​    And almost as big a deal, he joined me recently on Zoom to talk about his new book, Burning the Books, a history of the deliberate destruction of knowledge; about the threats to libraries past and present; about fire, war, violence, obsolescence, complacency and underfunding. And about the fragility of libraries, and their fundamental importance to democracy, to truth and facts, to the rule of law, in short, to our treasured Western way of life.

Dan Mozersky enjoyed a long and fruitful career in the retail book industry. As a founding member of Indigo Books & Music's executive team he was instrumental in turning the company's vision into reality ( we talk about this in Part ll of our conversation).  During the 1990s he served as manager of U.S. Operations for Classic Books in New York. Prior to this he founded and owned a chain of retail bookstores in Ottawa and Montreal.  Active in the Canadian Booksellers Association, he served as director, vice president, and chair of various industry committees. In 1985 he was recognized by the Canadian Book Publishers' Professional Association as bookseller of the year.  We talk here in Part l of our conversation about how Dan built his successful chain of bricks and mortar bookstores.  

Mary Newberry is a Toronto-based freelance editor, indexer, and teacher. Her early passion was dancing. The self-discipline she learned from it is today one of her greatest assets. She works mostly with humanities-related texts: academic, government, literary, creative arts and general interest, and lately, in memoir. She has a long-term relationship with social justice and diversity, and enjoys working in these areas.   Scholarly editing is one of her specialties. She enjoys complex materials, helping to bring clarity and concision to emerging ideas. She often works with scholars for whom English is an additional language, and teaches indexing in a course she developed for Ryerson University's Publishing Program. In 2016, she won the Ewart-Daveluy Award for excellence in indexing.   We talk here about the history and practice of indexing, looking specifically at her notable work on Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report, in addition to several of her award-winning books.

The son of prominent book collector Kenneth E. Hill, Jonathan A. Hill grew up in a house filled with old books.  After graduating from university in 1974 he served a classic apprenticeship, working for four leading antiquarian booksellers in San Francisco, New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. In 1978 he started his own company and has specialized in science, medicine, natural history, bibliography and the history of book collecting, and early printed books. For the past 20 years he has, partnering with his wife Megumi, also sold antiquarian Japanese, Chinese, and Korean illustrated books, manuscripts, and scrolls.  During the past 43 years the company has issued more than 230 catalogues devoted to these various subjects.   It is thanks to them that I contacted Jonathan. We talk here about his (and Jerry Kelly's) impressive work, and about bookseller catalogues in general.   

Miriam Borden, a teacher of Yiddish and PhD Candidate at the University of Toronto, is winner of the 2020 Honey and Wax Book Collecting Prize for “Building a Nation of Little Readers: Twentieth-Century Yiddish Primers and Workbooks for Children.” Borden collects twentieth-century Yiddish educational materials. Language primers form the core of her collection which also includes songbooks and workbooks, flash cards, and scripts from school plays. These artifacts testify to a once-thriving Yiddish school system across North America, a network that collapsed after World War II as Jewish immigrants assimilated and Hebrew emerged as the language of the State of Israel. As a teacher of Yiddish, Borden now uses these vintage materials to instruct adults hoping to reconnect with a lost part of their heritage. This from her winning essay: “There was no heirloom china in the house where I grew up, no silver from grandmother’s chest to be taken out and polished for holidays and family celebrations. That china had all been shattered, the silver stolen. . .The heirlooms, and most of the family, were lost. But that does not mean I am bereft of inheritance. I was raised with an heirloom language, a treasure that could be taken out and polished and used on those rare moments when no word in English or Polish or Hebrew would fit the occasion. I was raised to speak the language of the dead. But never for a moment did it ever dawn on me that it was a dead language.”   Miriam’s collection represents "an impressive effort of historical preservation and an inspiring example of how a collection that began as something personal becomes a collective resource," said the Prize judges. You can read her winning essay and bibliography here.

Martin Latham has been a bookseller for thirty-five years. He has a PhD in Indian history, and taught at Hertfordshire University before turning to bookselling. He is proud to be responsible for the biggest petty-cash claim in Waterstones' history, when he paid for the excavation of a Roman bath-house floor under his bookshop. Martin's books include Kent's Strangest Tales, Londonopolis, and most recently The Bookseller's Tale which we talk about in this episode. It's really a book full of tales about books of course, and bookstores, libraries, chapbooks, marginalia, women readers and collectors - chock full of fascinating biblio adventures. I highly recommend it. 

The Bookshelf bookshop in Guelph, Ontario was established in 1973 by Barb and Doug Minett. In 1980 it became The Bookshelf Cafe - Canada's first bookstore cafe/restaurant. Shortly thereafter an ambitious plan was conceived to add a cinema and bar to what was then the roof of the building. During implementation, University of Guelph physics professor and longtime customer, Jim Hunt, trained a team of 10 cafe servers and booksellers in the art & science of 35mm projection. In 1988 The Bookshelf Cinema showed its first film. Over 20,000 shows and 1,000,000 cinema goers later, the cinema continues to offer 14-15 shows a week with its fancy digital projection and great sound system. Shortly thereafter bookshelf.ca (Canada's first full-service online bookstore - sold to Indigo in the late 90s) was launched. The Bookshelf team also embarked on "the great leap sideways" expanding all aspects of the emporium by re-building the building next door and adding a music venue: the eBar. Many great Canadian musical talents have graced the eBar stage. The bar serves up great craft beers and dj's and dancing every Saturday night. Over the years The Bookshelf has operated a number of food and beverage operations - originally with its own staff and later in collaboration with others. In 2015 The Bookshelf welcomed Miijidaa ("Let's Eat") as its restaurant collaborator. My conversation with Doug Minett starts with him in Europe, with his future wife Barb, the year prior to their setting up shop, and ends with discussion of cibabooks.ca and Doug's role as acting Executive Director.

It was on Twitter a couple of months ago that I noticed this tweet celebrating the work of one Bianca Gillam (@BinxGillam). 'You're the best special sales assistant ever', it said, or words to that effect. Hmm I thought. What, I wonder, does a special sales assistant do at a publishing house - I'd noticed that she worked at Simon & Schuster ( @simonschusterUK ). I wasn't sure. So I tweeted at Bianca, inviting her to appear on the podcast to explain just exactly what she does. 

Last year at about this time David Gilmour and I sat down together to talk about "Mojave" one of Truman Capote's greatest short stories. We enjoyed ourselves so much we decided to do it again, this time with "Shut a Final Door."  Capote wrote this story when he was only 23 years old. David contends that it strongly foreshadows how Truman's actual life would unfold - as a slow, messy descent into hell. Perfect fare for the holiday season.  Merry Christmas everyone. Thanks for listening!    Photo by Jack Mitchell

Virago is a London-based British publishing company committed to publishing women's writing and books on "feminist" topics.  Established by women in the 1970s in tandem with the Women's Liberation Movement (WLM), Virago has done much to address inequitable gender dynamics in the publishing world, and, unlike anti-capitalist publishing ventures, has branded itself a commercial alternative in a male dominated publishing industry, seeking to compete with mainstream international presses.   Initially known as Spare Rib Books, Virago was founded by  Carmen Callil in 1973 primarily to publish books by women writers. From the get-go the company sought two sorts of books: original works, and out-of-print books by neglected female writers. The latter were reissued under the "Modern Classics" label, which launched in 1978   In 1982, Virago became a wholly owned subsidiary Random House, USA, but in 1987 Callil, Lennie Goodings and others put together a management buy-out. After a downturn in the market, the board decided to sell Virago to Little, Brown, of which Virago became an imprint in 1996 (with Lennie as Publisher).  In 2006, Virago became part of the Hachette publishing group with Lennie acting as editor and publisher. She is now Chair of Virago.   Today the company's stated mission is to "champion women’s voices and bring them to the widest possible readership around the world. From fiction and politics to history and classic children’s stories, its writers continue to win acclaim, break new ground and enrich the lives of readers."   I met Lennie via Zoom to talk about her life with Virago, as described in her new memoir A Bite of the Apple, published by OUP around the world, and by mighty Biblioasis in Canada.