Tuesday, Jul 07, 2026

A Note from the Director

I tend to wake up in the night during July and ask myself questions like, do we have enough plastic picnic knives on hand so folks can slice open their gathered octavo sheets? Should we swap out some of the assigned cataloging  materials for even trickier examples? What lures and snares should we add to the Evil Carter exercise? 

It’s July. 

The CABS-Minnesota seminar opens in about three weeks. We have our eyes on Northfield, where we kick off on the St. Olaf campus on Sunday evening, July 26. 

I tend to wake up in the night during July and ask myself questions like, 

What would happen if I added those fifteen new slides to my ephemera lesson?

(Open rebellion is what would happen. I had better take another hack at this thing.)

The CABS faculty put ourselves through all this planning and revision and worry because we all have only this one short week together at the seminar. All we want to do over the course of that week is to talk with you about antiquarian bookselling. All we want to do is to work with you on how we can all do bookselling better.

 

All of which is my big windup to say thank you for the support you’ve given us over the past year to get us back to Northfield, where we will spend this week together trying to do good work and to think about nothing but antiquarian bookselling. 

The recent gifts made for the Matty D’Angelo memorial campaign have put our Diverse Voices Fellowship program on steady ground for the next year. Maria Lin reports that our charity auction donations have been robust. Our new and returning sponsors have helped us hold the line on tuition for this edition of the seminar, which – taken together with our scholarship supporters – all help us in our efforts to keep CABS accessible for early career booksellers. 

You have probably already heard me say that non-profit is no mere legal distinction when it comes to the Antiquarian Book School Foundation and the CABS seminar. Your support sustains our mission to help insure the future of an antiquarian book trade we all might want to be part of. 

For that, we offer thanks.

I will be up to my elbows revising lectures and handling logistics over the next couple of weeks, but I’m always happy to take a break from that to answer any questions about our mission. Shoot me a note and let’s talk. And I’ll see you in Northfield.

 

Garrett Scott

Director, CABS-Minnesota

Interim President, the Antiquarian Book School Foundation