ILAB Year End Webinar: Wrapping Up 2020

In April earlier this year, ILAB invited to a webinar with booksellers from across the globe to look at the immediate effect of the COVID pandemic on the rare book trade.

Since April, staff was furloughed, came back and was sent home again as some countries are now experiencing a new wave of infections and restrictions. Bookshops were boarded off and later reopened under strict hygienic measures. Some are closed again.

Institutions shifted their budgets to 2021, some demanded much longer admin time than usual, others only recently moved their staff out of home office.

Nearly all book fairs were cancelled and the concept of virtual fairs gained momentum.

Online platforms saw a major increase in traffic and customers.

• How has the rare book trade adapted to this new landscape eight months on?
• How did booksellers handle this extreme situation and what have we learned we can share with our colleagues?
• Can we take some positives from 2020 and apply to a post-COVID world?

Sally Burdon, ILAB President and moderator of the event, will speak again to:

Mario Giupponi, Italy

Brad Johnson, US

Pom Harrington, UK

Ryu Sato, Japan

Hervé Valentin, France and

Sibylle Wieduwilt, Germany

DATE: 7th December 2020 at 1pm London time

Further sample times:

Los Angeles: 5am

New York: 8am

London: 1pm

Berlin, Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, Stockholm: 2pm

Moscow: 4pm

Tokyo: 10pm

Canberra: 00:00 midnight

Please use the following link and register (only name and email address necessary):

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_cbV9YfCeT1-ehbIvej9cGA

You can join with any laptop, computer, smartphone or tablet. If you have not used the video conferencing software ZOOM before, please allow a few minutes beforehand to wait for the system to be installed.

The webinar will take place in English language.

We look forward to seeing many colleagues on 7th December!