July 20, 2010
Canada’s Second National Book Collecting Contest 2010-11
I was very pleased to discover this morning that, after a year’s hiatus during which I thought perhaps they’d given up, the Bibliographical Society of Canada, the Alcuin Society and the newly-founded W.A. Deacon Literary Foundation are running Canada’s Second National Book Collecting Contest.
This is fabulous on a couple of levels. There’s the obvious goal of the contest, to foster and encourage interest in book collecting (and book-as-object in general) in younger people. It’s also nice to see Canadian book history organizations collaborate on a project like this: a healthy book collecting culture (including not just collectors, but dealers, publishers, academics and librarians) needs institutional support to thrive. The contest is also shaping up to be a really excellent source of beautiful posters for bibliophiles and typography geeks. This year’s design by Jennifer Griffiths is every bit as lovely as last year’s, even if it doesn’t contain quite so many different display types.
If you’re under 30 and collect books even as, you might think, a green amateur, I really encourage you to enter. Everything about the contest, from the educational value of researching your books to the people you’ll meet from the sponsoring organizations, is worthwhile to a book-lover. And who knows, right? $1000 can buy a lot of books.
I have listed the contest under the Events tab for your future convenience. You have until March of 2011 – good luck!