Michael F. Suarez, S.J. is University Professor and Director of Rare Book School at the University of Virginia. The holder of research fellowships from The American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, he is also Honorary Curator of the University of Virginia’s special collections and Professor of English.

His most recent publication is The Oxford Companion to the Book (2010), a million-word reference work on the history of books and manuscripts from the invention of writing to the present day. The Sunday Telegraph in London called it “colossal” and “a paradise for book lovers;” while The Wall Street Journal praised it as “a fount of knowledge where the Internet is but a slot machine.”

A Jesuit priest, Michael is currently co-General Editor of The Collected Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Editor-in-Chief of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online (OSEO), one of the largest digital humanities projects extant today. His two forthcoming books (both from OUP, 2013) are a scholarly edition of The Dublin Notebook of Gerard Manley Hopkins (co-edited with L.J. Higgins) and The Book: A Global History (co-edited with H.R. Woudhuysen). In 2014–15, he will hold the J.R. Lyell Readership in Bibliography at Oxford University

Sally Burdon joined her mother, Barbara Burdon, in the operation of an antiquarian and secondhand book business in Australia's capital city, Canberra, in 1982. She has been working in the business ever since. For many years their business, The Old Bookroom, dealt in general out of print and antiquarian books with a specialization in Asian material. Just over 10 years ago the decision was made to deal in books on Asia exclusively and to sell off the rest of the stock. This decision seemed rather risky at the time, but has proved to be a great success having brought about many changes in the way the business runs and opened up a great many opportunities. 

Sally now runs the business as Barbara has retired. Sally is a great believer that booksellers need to be open to new ideas, constantly thinking about how they can improve what they are selling and how they sell it.

Sally is currently President of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Antiquarian Booksellers (ANZAAB).