Bibliographical Society of America (New York, N.Y.)

The Bibliographical Society of America (BSA) began as the Bibliographical Society of Chicago (BSC) in 1899. Early concerns of the society included bibliographical scholarship related to English works and the accessibility of rare books held in private collections. The BSC elected to produce a publication that contained scholarly work related to bibliography and also relayed the actions of the society and its meetings. In 1901, a meeting of the American Library Association (ALA) spurred the idea of the creation of a national bibliographical society. At the suggestion of the ALA, the BSC appointed a committee and began discussing the possibilities of a national organization. The proceedings of the committee were slow until, in June 1903, it was decided that the time for a national society had come. In 1903 and 1904 membership of the Bibliographical Society of America expanded and increased, and a meeting of the council in October of 1904 marked the true beginning of the BSA.

The Bibliographical Society of America (BSA) is the oldest scholarly society in North America dedicated to the study of books and manuscripts as physical objects. It was incorporated in 1927 with the principal objectives of promoting bibliographical research and issuing bibliographical publications. These objectives continue to be accomplished through a broad array of activities, including meetings, lectures, and fellowship programs, as well as publishing. The Society welcomes those interested in bibliographical problems and projects, and its membership includes bibliographers, librarians, professors, students, booksellers, and collectors worldwide. The majority of the Society’s members are from the United States and Canada, but most European countries, Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand are also represented, together with institutions in Brazil, India, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe.

As an international, interdisciplinary scholarly organization that fosters the study of books and other textual artifacts in traditional and emerging formats, the BSA hosts public programs, funds scholarly research, confers awards, issues publications, and collaborates with related organizations to fulfill its mission and achieve its goals.

The Society funds short-term fellowships to support bibliographical projects as well as research in the history of the book trades and in publishing history. It also sponsors the New Scholars Program, which funds early-career scholars to deliver papers on bibliographical topics at a forum immediately preceding the BSA annual meeting. The Society also awards the William L. Mitchell Prize for Bibliography or Documentary Work on Early British Periodicals or Newspapers; the Justin G. Schiller Prize for Bibliographical Work in Pre-20th Century Children’s Books, and the St. Louis Mercantile Library Prize in American Bibliography.

In 1904-1905, the first volume of the Bibliographical Society of America Proceedings and Papers was published. Since 1907 the Society has published the quarterly journal Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America (PBSA). The PBSA features articles and reviews on a variety of bibliographical and book history topics, including printing, binding, publication, distribution, collecting, and textual analysis. The Society also maintains an active publishing program for scholarly monographs.

The Society holds its annual meeting each January in New York City. The meeting consists of a session of three papers delivered by New Scholars on their current research, a business meeting, an address by an invited speaker, and a reception. The Society sponsors its own conferences, as well as joint meetings with allied organizations, and panels and speakers at other societies’ conferences, in the United States and abroad. Past conferences include “Poetry and Print in Early America” (Worcester, 2012); “Reading in the White House” (Washington, D.C., 2010); “Book Catalogues: Tomorrow and Beyond” (New York, 2008); and “Roughing It: Printing and the Press in the West” (St. Louis, 2004).