From: Barbara Ann Opar
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2014 2:58 PM
To: 'Raymond Smith'; [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: RE: [ARLIS-L] Regarding author and bookseller postings
If the authors and booksellers are paying members of ARLIS, I see no problem with postings if they do not take over the list. They can be looked at as commercial, but they are also a help to us and as such informative in terms of knowing what sources are out there for us to select. My 2 cents. Barbara Opar
From: ARLIS/NA List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Raymond Smith
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2014 1:52 PM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [ARLIS-L] Regarding author and bookseller postings
The arbitrary decision to disallow announcements of new book postings, especially by creative and scholarly members of the ARLIS art community, and new catalogues by bookseller members is simply going to far. Of course no one wants to be deluged with blatant commercial appeals, but such announcements, without the mention of prices, are not the same thing.
Authors’ and booksellers’ announcements, which are basically low key, simply should not be conflated with commercial advertising.
I challenge the committee to share the text of an author’s, artist’s, or bookseller’s announcement with a tax lawyer or an IRS agent for a more rational opinion regarding these modest postings. How they can in any way threaten the Society’s non-profit status is beyond me.
Why are we in ARLIS anyway? Despite the ever-growing digitalization of the literature of art, didn’t the original formation of the Society have something to do with art books, their collection, their dissemination, and their availability to an audience of scholars, collectors and art enthusiasts?
Personally, nothing sounded more commercial to me than the recent announcement regarding the development of an ARLIS Marketplace, with such postings categorized as “E-Blasts”, a term which I find overly trendy and frankly offensive when referring to catalogues by myself and those of my esteemed colleagues, which if anything, are as scholarly and non-commercial as many of the books which come up for review. It’s not likely that any of us bookseller members will be paying for such “Blasts”, given their basically commercial thrust and cost.
As an aside, I am grateful to the President for granting me a one-time complimentary “E-Blast” to announce the availability of two massive catalogues on architecture and on modern design – my first since 2001, both in the works for more than a decade.
The permission, however, came about a month after I submitted my announcement, not expecting it to be rejected. As result, I had to send it in advance piecemeal to a handful of selected members (who responded strongly with substantial orders). For it to be current, however, I had to revise the catalogues and delete the items already sold, requiring a good deal of additional time and labor, while denying the membership at large opportunities for serious collection development. If the E-Blast was to attract responses, it did not work, so I am not sure how widely it was disseminated. I received no more than a half dozen or so requests for the catalogues, despite the nearly fifteen years of research and collecting that went into their contents. The paucity of the response was almost as shocking as the announcement’s original rejection.
And as my own book of photographs, In Time We Shall Know Ourselves, with essays by Alexander Nemerov (Stanford University) and Richard H. King (University of Nottingham) - a book in the works for forty years, which I hoped to announce to my ARLIS friends - soon becomes available (in conjunction with the traveling exhibition organized by the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts opening in June), I hope its realization will not be deemed too commercial for our very special readership.
Respectfully,
Raymond Smith
R.W. Smith Bookseller
New Haven
[A loyal ARLIS member since 1980]
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Mail submissions to [log in to unmask]<mailto:[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]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> ARLIS-L Archives and subscription maintenance: http://lsv.arlisna.org Questions may be addressed to list owner (Judy Dyki) at: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
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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.arlisna.org Questions may be addressed to list owner (Judy Dyki) at: [log in to unmask]
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