You can watch the latest edition of Rare Book Cafe live streaming at 3:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, November 4 right here on the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair blog. Michael Slicker, owner of Lighthouse Books, ABAA, and chairman of the book fair, will be a guest on the show. If you are unable to see the show live, don't worry. It'll be recorded and you can watch it right here.
This is a relatively new development for Blab, the live streaming platform where Rare Book Cafe occurs. The feature was added last week and our first embedded session was on Saturday. This makes it really convenient to see these programs.
The Rare Book Cafe is sponsored by the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. It features antiquarian book dealers from around the world who share stories, information, and a look at some of the books, maps, prints, and ephemera in their collections. It's a wonderful opportunity for book lovers everywhere. For anyone who would like to embed Rare Book Cafe on your own blog or web site, just send us an email to floridabookfair2@gmail.com.
Showing posts with label Blab. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blab. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Rare Book Cafe: Owen Felix of Tipperary, Ireland
A extraordinary thing happened on a recent Saturday that demonstrates just how modern technology has brought the world a lot closer. Carrie Carnes of Old Tampa Book Company had been scheduled to be the special guest on Rare Book Cafe, the new Blab TV live streaming program about antiquarian books, hosted by Steven Eisenstein and co-hosted by Thorne Donnelley.
Unfortunately, Carrie's computer wouldn't cooperate and she was never able to join the program. However, as fate would have it, an extraordinary gentleman did join the program and proceeded to conduct an amazing guided tour of his home in Tipperary, Ireland. His name is Owen Felix O'Neill, and he is an authority on early English Bibles, the owner of a most unusual collection of rare books, pamphlets, historical documents, and original prints, and, apparently, a reluctant bookseller, who by his own admission refuses to part with 90 per cent of his collection.
Felix also is a consummate host, whose tour of his 200-year-old home on the Rare Book Cafe is pure delight for the book lover. You can watch a replay of the program above. As technical difficulties were the order of the day, Felix joined the program earlier but could not be heard until about 15:58. For a little more than 40 minutes after that, Felix narrated and bantered with Steven and Thorne as he showed such treasures as a William Tyndale New Testament of 1526, a Shakespeare first folio, and Christopher Columbus' personal copy of the 1488 Travels to the Orient by John Mandeville. It was mesmerizing, each new item more astounding than the previous one.
Felix is a well known and respected book dealer in Ireland and the UK, and was called in to appraise the library collection at All Hallows College in Dublin as the 172-year-old institution prepared to sell some of its holdings to forestall closing last year. Felix discovered that several volumes had gone missing as had a collection of letters Jackie Kennedy wrote over a 15-year period to a priest friend who served at the college. Felix discovered that the plundering of valuable books at the school had gone on for years.
Felix also showed his 1877 copies of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights, Abraham Lincoln's 1861 speech when he won the presidential election, Thomas Jefferson's signed passport, original hand-painted sketches from one of Capt. James Cook's tours of the Pacific Ocean in the 1760s and 1770s, and "the oldest bottle of Irish whiskey in the world."
What a delight! The visit was comfortable and most entertaining, and Felix promised to revisit Rare Book Cafe again. We can't wait.
Unfortunately, Carrie's computer wouldn't cooperate and she was never able to join the program. However, as fate would have it, an extraordinary gentleman did join the program and proceeded to conduct an amazing guided tour of his home in Tipperary, Ireland. His name is Owen Felix O'Neill, and he is an authority on early English Bibles, the owner of a most unusual collection of rare books, pamphlets, historical documents, and original prints, and, apparently, a reluctant bookseller, who by his own admission refuses to part with 90 per cent of his collection.
Felix also is a consummate host, whose tour of his 200-year-old home on the Rare Book Cafe is pure delight for the book lover. You can watch a replay of the program above. As technical difficulties were the order of the day, Felix joined the program earlier but could not be heard until about 15:58. For a little more than 40 minutes after that, Felix narrated and bantered with Steven and Thorne as he showed such treasures as a William Tyndale New Testament of 1526, a Shakespeare first folio, and Christopher Columbus' personal copy of the 1488 Travels to the Orient by John Mandeville. It was mesmerizing, each new item more astounding than the previous one.
Felix is a well known and respected book dealer in Ireland and the UK, and was called in to appraise the library collection at All Hallows College in Dublin as the 172-year-old institution prepared to sell some of its holdings to forestall closing last year. Felix discovered that several volumes had gone missing as had a collection of letters Jackie Kennedy wrote over a 15-year period to a priest friend who served at the college. Felix discovered that the plundering of valuable books at the school had gone on for years.
Felix also showed his 1877 copies of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights, Abraham Lincoln's 1861 speech when he won the presidential election, Thomas Jefferson's signed passport, original hand-painted sketches from one of Capt. James Cook's tours of the Pacific Ocean in the 1760s and 1770s, and "the oldest bottle of Irish whiskey in the world."
What a delight! The visit was comfortable and most entertaining, and Felix promised to revisit Rare Book Cafe again. We can't wait.
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Rare Book Cafe: If you missed it LIVE, watch it now
On Wednesday, September 2, we launched the first live streaming session of Rare Book Cafe, our new community for discussion of antiquarian books, maps, prints, ephemera and more. It's an informal gathering and we were pleased that people could stop by and say hello.
Blab is a new platform, so new that it isn't really even fully developed yet. Clearly, though, it has a lot of advantage over other streaming platforms and we're delighted to have the opportunity to use it. One of the things we like about it, despite the glitches that you'll see as the video progresses, is that is really is accessible. It's pretty easy to use. That's why we think as people discover it, they'll want to use it.
A note about the glitches: Madlyn Blom appears upside down in the video. We do not know what the issue is that has caused that. We hope to find out and correct it. The Blab format does not allow the text comments to be included in the replay so we encourage you to see the live version if you can.
People who love antiquarian books are going to find a lot of value in visiting Rare Book Cafe. We hope you'll join us. Right now we're planning to have sessions on Wednesdays at 3:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 2:30 p.m., following Steven Eisenstein's Buck on the Bookshelf, which is broadcast on wdbfradio.com from noon to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. Steven will be one of our hosts for the live Rare Book Cafe session.
Thank you to the participants today, Thorne Donnelley, owner of Liberty Books, LLC FABA in Palm Beach, Steven Eisenstein, owner of A-Book-A-Brac Books in Miami Beach, Libby Ware, owner of Toadlily Books in Atlanta and president of the Georgia Antiquarian Booksellers Association, and Madlyn Blom, owner of Old Bag Lady Books in Sun City Center, Florida. Also, thank you to those who listened or watched from the sidelines. We appreciate your interest and support.
We're remaining flexible about when to schedule the live sessions. Of course, we'd appreciate your thoughts and ideas about Rare Book Cafe, what you'd like to see, when you'd like to see it, and who you'd like to talk to in the antiquarian book trade. Comment below or send an email to floridabookfair2@gmail.com.
Blab is a new platform, so new that it isn't really even fully developed yet. Clearly, though, it has a lot of advantage over other streaming platforms and we're delighted to have the opportunity to use it. One of the things we like about it, despite the glitches that you'll see as the video progresses, is that is really is accessible. It's pretty easy to use. That's why we think as people discover it, they'll want to use it.
A note about the glitches: Madlyn Blom appears upside down in the video. We do not know what the issue is that has caused that. We hope to find out and correct it. The Blab format does not allow the text comments to be included in the replay so we encourage you to see the live version if you can.
People who love antiquarian books are going to find a lot of value in visiting Rare Book Cafe. We hope you'll join us. Right now we're planning to have sessions on Wednesdays at 3:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 2:30 p.m., following Steven Eisenstein's Buck on the Bookshelf, which is broadcast on wdbfradio.com from noon to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. Steven will be one of our hosts for the live Rare Book Cafe session.
Thank you to the participants today, Thorne Donnelley, owner of Liberty Books, LLC FABA in Palm Beach, Steven Eisenstein, owner of A-Book-A-Brac Books in Miami Beach, Libby Ware, owner of Toadlily Books in Atlanta and president of the Georgia Antiquarian Booksellers Association, and Madlyn Blom, owner of Old Bag Lady Books in Sun City Center, Florida. Also, thank you to those who listened or watched from the sidelines. We appreciate your interest and support.
We're remaining flexible about when to schedule the live sessions. Of course, we'd appreciate your thoughts and ideas about Rare Book Cafe, what you'd like to see, when you'd like to see it, and who you'd like to talk to in the antiquarian book trade. Comment below or send an email to floridabookfair2@gmail.com.
Saturday, August 29, 2015
Please join the conversation at the Rare Book Cafe
RARE BOOK CAFE (dress rehearsal) Saturday, August 29, 2015 - Clockwise from top left: Thorne Donnelley, Steven Eisenstein, Larry Kellogg, and T. Allan Smith.
Imagine a place where you can mingle with knowledgeable booksellers, ask them questions, share some stories and some laughs – a place where you can have a cup of coffee and join in the fun. That's called the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair but it happens only once a year. Well, now we've created a virtual place like that – and you don't even have to leave your house, though you do have to bring your own coffee.
Welcome to the Rare Book Cafe, a free-form Internet conversation about antiquarian books, maps, prints, ephemera, and more – all the stuff you love. You can see and talk to book dealers, people who know the details of publishing over hundreds of years. What a treat! What's more, it's free. All you need is a computer or IOS device and a good wi-fi connection and you're ready to go.
We're always looking for ways to leverage social media to help tell the story of the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair in particular and the antiquarian book trade in general. When we discovered the platform called Blab, we knew we had found something special.
Some think the name is unfortunate and we're inclined to agree. The odd name notwithstanding, Blab provides the perfect blend of eyeball-to-eyeball interaction and flexible structure that we think will facilitate booksellers and book lovers getting to know each other. It's the same sort of thing that happens in rare bookstores all over the country (heck, all over the world) but Blab makes it possible to connect with anybody anywhere who has a decent wi-fi connection. We think the result will be positive for everyone involved.
It's an axiom in business that people do business with people they know, like and trust. If you can't meet them in person, what better way to get to know a favorite book dealer than interact with them eyeball-to-eyeball in the Rare Book Cafe? Suddenly the world is a much smaller place when you can talk in real time with people all over the world who have the same interests as you do.
We've been practicing with this new way of communicating for a short time but most of the sessions weren't recorded. On Saturday, we did what we called a dress rehearsal. It's a preparation for our first official Rare Book Cafe session on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. At the top of this article, you can see a video of the session. It will give you a glimpse into what to expect. However, you have to experience it in person to really get the full effect. For instance, in the LIVE version, the names of the participants show up on screen. They're not in the recorded version so you need a scorecard to tell who the players are. (We'll give you one below for the session we show here.) In the LIVE version, the four boxes where you see speakers are in a different position. In the LIVE version, you can type a comment and it'll show up in a column at the right. You don't have that option in the recorded version. in fact, the comments that were given during the event don't even show up in the recorded version.
Here's the short of it. The Blab platform is in beta, meaning they're still working on it. In fact, the developers are drawing on the experiences of people who are using Blab to make improvements. We have been seeing upgrades on a daily basis. It's kind of fun to watch, actually. So, we're jumping in because we think this is a great place for lovers of antiquarian books to be. We'd like you to come along for the ride and have some fun with us.
The Florida Antiquarian Book Fair is happy to sponsor Rare Book Cafe. We're doing it two days a week – Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. (ET) and Saturday at 2:30 p.m. (ET) That's for now. It's subject to change, depending upon what people want. So let us hear from you. You can send comments to floridabookfair2@gmail.com.
This coming Wednesday, our topic: Is the antiquarian book fair a thing of the past? It is worthy of discussion, especially with the upcoming book fairs in our immediate future. We're expecting to talk to folks from the 2015 Georgia Book and Paper Fair, which will be next weekend (September 5- 6) in Decatur. We have been delighted with the support of Josh Niesse and Megan Bell, who own Underground Books in Carrollton, home of the University of West Georgia.
Okay, the scorecard we promised. The boxes move around as the video progresses but this who's who is based on where they are at the beginning.
In the upper left box is Thorne Donnelley, who owns Liberty Book Store LLC, FABA, in Palm Beach. Thorne's great-grandfather founded R.R. Donnelley & Sons, one of the largest commercial printing companies in the world. Thorne formerly ran a jet and helicopter service in Los Angeles. He specializes in coffee table books about planes, boats, and cars, as well as fine collectible first editions.
In the upper right box is Steven Eisenstein, owner of A-Book-A-Brac Shop in Miami Beach. Steven is a well-known South Florida bookseller, and long-time exhibitor at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. He also is host of the popular Internet-based radio show Bucks on the Bookshelf, which is broadcast live on Saturdays from noon to 2 p.m. on WDBFradio.com and repeated on Sundays. Steven will serve as a host for Rare Book Cafe.
In the lower right box is Larry Kellogg, who served as manager of the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair for more than two decades. He is former print journalist and public relations professional, and an avid collector of circus memorabilia. He writes for the collectibles website WorthPoint.
In the lower left box is T. Allan Smith (that's me), a retired journalist and former bookseller, who serves as the resident Internet techie and official photographer for the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. If you've been to the book fair, you've probably seen me taking pictures all over The Coliseum during the three-day event. You'll find my pictures on this blog and the various websites of the book fair.
So that's it. Rare Book Cafe is a work in progress as is Blab. (By the way, we've taken to jokingly calling it B-Lab for Broadcast Laboratory just to avoid saying the name.) We hope you'll join in, be part of the process, and help us shape Rare Book Cafe. But bring you own coffee. They haven't figured out how to serve a cup of joe over the Internet.
-- T. Allan Smith
TIPS FOR GETTING ONTO BLAB
Getting onto Blab is really easy if you can navigate around something like Facebook or Twitter or YouTube but here are some quick tips that may help.
• It's easier and advantageous to use your Twitter account to sign up for Blab. You'll see why once you get in there. Just remember a little bird told you.
• Apps are available for IOS devices (probably soon for Android devices, too). The icon is a strange little purple baby owl-like symbol. There's another app out there called Blab that looks like a child's cartoon character. That's not the right one. Look for the purple owl.
• On a desktop computer, you can also go to blab.im on a Google Chrome browser or a Firefox browser. Safari and Internet Explorer won't work.
• Blab is easier to navigate now than it was a couple of weeks ago. They've put the growing number of Blab sessions into categories and added a search function so finding the Blab session you're looking for is easier.
• It's a good idea to follow the principal people in a Blab session because you'll get automatic notices when they set up new Blabs. You can also follow them on Twitter for redundant notices. Blab sessons will be set up in advance. You can subscribe to them and receive notices if there are any changes and alerts before they start.
• Lurk on the sidelines of a Blab session to get an idea of how the Blab works but then jump in and participate. That's what's going to make it a rewarding experience for you. Type in comments to take part in the discussion. When there's an empty seat, jump in and add your two cents worth. Don't be shy. We won't bite.
• Ask questions. Most book dealers love to talk books, and they'll reveal nuggets from their vast storehouse of information if you get them going.
• Above all, have fun. This is a cafe. Relax and enjoy.
Imagine a place where you can mingle with knowledgeable booksellers, ask them questions, share some stories and some laughs – a place where you can have a cup of coffee and join in the fun. That's called the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair but it happens only once a year. Well, now we've created a virtual place like that – and you don't even have to leave your house, though you do have to bring your own coffee.
Welcome to the Rare Book Cafe, a free-form Internet conversation about antiquarian books, maps, prints, ephemera, and more – all the stuff you love. You can see and talk to book dealers, people who know the details of publishing over hundreds of years. What a treat! What's more, it's free. All you need is a computer or IOS device and a good wi-fi connection and you're ready to go.
We're always looking for ways to leverage social media to help tell the story of the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair in particular and the antiquarian book trade in general. When we discovered the platform called Blab, we knew we had found something special.
Some think the name is unfortunate and we're inclined to agree. The odd name notwithstanding, Blab provides the perfect blend of eyeball-to-eyeball interaction and flexible structure that we think will facilitate booksellers and book lovers getting to know each other. It's the same sort of thing that happens in rare bookstores all over the country (heck, all over the world) but Blab makes it possible to connect with anybody anywhere who has a decent wi-fi connection. We think the result will be positive for everyone involved.
It's an axiom in business that people do business with people they know, like and trust. If you can't meet them in person, what better way to get to know a favorite book dealer than interact with them eyeball-to-eyeball in the Rare Book Cafe? Suddenly the world is a much smaller place when you can talk in real time with people all over the world who have the same interests as you do.
We've been practicing with this new way of communicating for a short time but most of the sessions weren't recorded. On Saturday, we did what we called a dress rehearsal. It's a preparation for our first official Rare Book Cafe session on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. At the top of this article, you can see a video of the session. It will give you a glimpse into what to expect. However, you have to experience it in person to really get the full effect. For instance, in the LIVE version, the names of the participants show up on screen. They're not in the recorded version so you need a scorecard to tell who the players are. (We'll give you one below for the session we show here.) In the LIVE version, the four boxes where you see speakers are in a different position. In the LIVE version, you can type a comment and it'll show up in a column at the right. You don't have that option in the recorded version. in fact, the comments that were given during the event don't even show up in the recorded version.
Here's the short of it. The Blab platform is in beta, meaning they're still working on it. In fact, the developers are drawing on the experiences of people who are using Blab to make improvements. We have been seeing upgrades on a daily basis. It's kind of fun to watch, actually. So, we're jumping in because we think this is a great place for lovers of antiquarian books to be. We'd like you to come along for the ride and have some fun with us.
The Florida Antiquarian Book Fair is happy to sponsor Rare Book Cafe. We're doing it two days a week – Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. (ET) and Saturday at 2:30 p.m. (ET) That's for now. It's subject to change, depending upon what people want. So let us hear from you. You can send comments to floridabookfair2@gmail.com.
This coming Wednesday, our topic: Is the antiquarian book fair a thing of the past? It is worthy of discussion, especially with the upcoming book fairs in our immediate future. We're expecting to talk to folks from the 2015 Georgia Book and Paper Fair, which will be next weekend (September 5- 6) in Decatur. We have been delighted with the support of Josh Niesse and Megan Bell, who own Underground Books in Carrollton, home of the University of West Georgia.
Okay, the scorecard we promised. The boxes move around as the video progresses but this who's who is based on where they are at the beginning.
In the upper left box is Thorne Donnelley, who owns Liberty Book Store LLC, FABA, in Palm Beach. Thorne's great-grandfather founded R.R. Donnelley & Sons, one of the largest commercial printing companies in the world. Thorne formerly ran a jet and helicopter service in Los Angeles. He specializes in coffee table books about planes, boats, and cars, as well as fine collectible first editions.
In the upper right box is Steven Eisenstein, owner of A-Book-A-Brac Shop in Miami Beach. Steven is a well-known South Florida bookseller, and long-time exhibitor at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. He also is host of the popular Internet-based radio show Bucks on the Bookshelf, which is broadcast live on Saturdays from noon to 2 p.m. on WDBFradio.com and repeated on Sundays. Steven will serve as a host for Rare Book Cafe.
In the lower right box is Larry Kellogg, who served as manager of the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair for more than two decades. He is former print journalist and public relations professional, and an avid collector of circus memorabilia. He writes for the collectibles website WorthPoint.
In the lower left box is T. Allan Smith (that's me), a retired journalist and former bookseller, who serves as the resident Internet techie and official photographer for the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. If you've been to the book fair, you've probably seen me taking pictures all over The Coliseum during the three-day event. You'll find my pictures on this blog and the various websites of the book fair.
So that's it. Rare Book Cafe is a work in progress as is Blab. (By the way, we've taken to jokingly calling it B-Lab for Broadcast Laboratory just to avoid saying the name.) We hope you'll join in, be part of the process, and help us shape Rare Book Cafe. But bring you own coffee. They haven't figured out how to serve a cup of joe over the Internet.
-- T. Allan Smith
TIPS FOR GETTING ONTO BLAB
Getting onto Blab is really easy if you can navigate around something like Facebook or Twitter or YouTube but here are some quick tips that may help.
• It's easier and advantageous to use your Twitter account to sign up for Blab. You'll see why once you get in there. Just remember a little bird told you.
• Apps are available for IOS devices (probably soon for Android devices, too). The icon is a strange little purple baby owl-like symbol. There's another app out there called Blab that looks like a child's cartoon character. That's not the right one. Look for the purple owl.
• On a desktop computer, you can also go to blab.im on a Google Chrome browser or a Firefox browser. Safari and Internet Explorer won't work.
• Blab is easier to navigate now than it was a couple of weeks ago. They've put the growing number of Blab sessions into categories and added a search function so finding the Blab session you're looking for is easier.
• It's a good idea to follow the principal people in a Blab session because you'll get automatic notices when they set up new Blabs. You can also follow them on Twitter for redundant notices. Blab sessons will be set up in advance. You can subscribe to them and receive notices if there are any changes and alerts before they start.
• Lurk on the sidelines of a Blab session to get an idea of how the Blab works but then jump in and participate. That's what's going to make it a rewarding experience for you. Type in comments to take part in the discussion. When there's an empty seat, jump in and add your two cents worth. Don't be shy. We won't bite.
• Ask questions. Most book dealers love to talk books, and they'll reveal nuggets from their vast storehouse of information if you get them going.
• Above all, have fun. This is a cafe. Relax and enjoy.
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