If you have put off ordering your pre-publication discount subscription to the catalog of the exhibition American Decorated Publishers' Bindings, 1872-1929, there will be a price increase this Thursday, December 15. Orders placed on or before December 14 will be at the current price for the Deluxe Edition, Limited Edition, or CD-ROM edition.
Why have over 30 major institutions subscribed, in addition to individual collectors and dealers?
Besides the discount pricing, you
get immediate web access to the entire up to date illustrated checklist
and database of the 400 designs in the collection, and to the drafts of
the catalog essays. You also get updates, commentary, and participation
in the Subscribers' Email Newsletter. Past Newsletters are also available
to subscribers. YOU CAN READ A NEWSLETTER online at
http://minsky.com/SubscribersNewsletter-10-14-05.htm
Librarians and curators are using these tools to identify books in the stacks and in circulation and move them into the Rare Book division. The photos of every binding in the catalog enable you to be sure the edition you have is the one in the catalog.
Dealers and collectors (as well as curators and librarians) are also using the catalog to identify items suitable for their collections, and to acquire them now, before the catalog is issued, while there is less competition for these items. We have already seen the prices and scarcity of many books in the catalog increase dramatically since the online version has been available.
Only 4 copies of the Deluxe Edition and 5 copies of the Limited Edition remain available at Pre-Publication pricing. After these copies are subscribed, the pre-publication subscription price becomes the same as the Publication Price. No discounts will then be available. Dealers have ordered pre-paid subscriptions,along with individuals and many institutions.
The exhibition has ended, but the
web version is archived at
http://minsky.com/amdecpub.htm
More than 50 designers are represented in the collection, and the catalog has been expanded from the original 200 books to include 400 designs. The Deluxe Edition will have color images of all 400 covers, with detail images of significant monograms. The Limited Edition will have 100 color images illustrating the catalog essays. Both editions include the CD-ROM, which has all the images and more, including a database of the collection.
Pre-publication subscribers have immediate access to the private Subscribers' Website. This has a checklist of all 400 books in the collection with color images, updated as new items are added, and current drafts of the essays, updated as they are written. It also has current versions of the database that you can download in either tab delimited or xls format.
All three editions are scheduled for publication in 2006.
Details about the editions and an
earlier (incomplete) version of the checklist are at
http://minsky.com/pub-dec-other.htm
A sample draft essay is at
http://www.minsky.com/arlis/
--
Richard
http://minsky.com