Following up on David's comments, could pre-conference notification of the
Wittenborn winners be given to the exhibiting book vendors so that they can
be prepared to include the books at their booths if appropriate to their
stock? That would give them some advantage while allowing the rest of us,
if we choose, to maintain ignorance of the awards until the convocation.
Ann Abid
----- Original Message -----
From: "Barbara Prior" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 8:25 AM
Subject: [ARLIS-L] Wittenborn Announcement: A Vendor's Perspective
> Dear ARLIS-L,
>
> Thanks for all the good suggestions to help us find a "middle way" for the
> Wittenborn announcement; I'm sure the 2007 committee will find them
> helpful.
>
> The email below was originally sent to Terrie and me but David Fogel (of
> Worldwide) agreed we could forward it to the list. It is very interesting
> to consider the question of the Wittenborn announcement from a vendor's
> perspective.
>
> Barbara
>
>
>
> On Mar 20, 2007, at 12:46 PM, David Fogel wrote:
>
> Dear Barbara and Terrie,
>
> We've followed the Wittenborn discussion with some interest, and
> while we decided not to post the following observations (which I
> drafted this morning) on the listserv, we thought they might be of
> interest to you and others. Should you see fit to communicate the
> gist of these remarks to your colleagues via the list (or present
> excerpts from them), please feel free to do so.
>
> Hope to see you in Atlanta!
>
> Best regards,
>
> David Fogel
> Worldwide Books
>
>
> In the recent discussion about the timing of the Wittenborn Award
> announcement, several people have suggested that an advantage of a
> pre-conference announcement is the opportunity it gives publishers
> to display their winning publications in the conference exhibit
> hall. Not to put too fine a point on what might seem to be a subtle
> distinction, I think it should be mentioned that the publishers of
> Wittenborn award winners are, it seems, rarely if ever in
> attendance at the ARLIS/NA annual conference, an impression
> confirmed by a review of the list of past winners posted on the
> ARLIS Web site. Making the announcement before the conference
> rather gives book distributors (like Worldwide Books, Erasmus,
> Shamansky, Karno and others) the opportunity to highlight these
> publications at their booths.
>
> As a book dealer, Worldwide does not have a vested interest in the
> timing of the award announcement; indeed, we appreciate the
> arguments against an early announcement. When this year's winners
> were announced a few days ago, however, we immediately contacted
> Hawk Hill Press (a publisher with whom we, and, we imagine, many of
> our library clients, were not familiar) to inquire about purchasing
> copies of American Indian Horse Masks to bring to the conference.
> We look forward to prominently displaying that title along with
> Prayers and Portraits from Yale, by now perhaps the preeminent
> player in art-book publishing, but a press that in our recollection
> has not attended an ARLIS conference as an exhibitor, at least in
> recent years. Since in any case neither of these publishers will be
> attending the conference this year, it's clear that absent the
> early announcement the winning publications would not have been
> showcased in the hall.
>
> __________________________________________________________________
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__________________________________________________________________
Mail submissions to [log in to unmask]
For information about joining ARLIS/NA see:
http://www.arlisna.org/join.html
Send administrative matters (file requests, subscription requests, etc)
to [log in to unmask]
ARLIS-L Archives and subscription maintenance:
http://lsv.uky.edu/archives/arlis-l.html
Questions may be addressed to list owner (Judy Dyki) at: [log in to unmask]
