Update Announcements by Craig Stark 22 May 2012

Chapter 11 of BookThink's Guide to Online Bookselling was delivered to subscribers today. The topic is first edition identification, more specifically, my recommendations for the essential (primarily print) references that booksellers should acquire for their own libraries to assist in identifying first editions. During the process of pulling some of these references off my shelves to photograph them, I noticed - probably because they are positioned so conspicuously above my monitor - that I had accumulated a fair number of bookselling dictionaries, glossaries, etc., over the years. Each of these was compiled with a specific audience in mind - an audience not necessarily having anything to do with bookselling as such. Bibliographers, book collectors, librarians, publishers, and so on, all have their own jargon, their own needs for dictionaries specific to what they do, though there is of course lots of overlap. But such is the nature of bookselling that it casts an umbrella over all of these areas; all references can be useful to us because all have something to do with what we buy and sell every day - books.

So, by way of a companion article to Chapter 11, I thought it might be useful to offer a survey of at least some of what's available and what, in my opinion, is good. The result is today's feature article.

By the way, if you aren't yet a subscriber to BookThink's Guide, you can do it here. New subscribers will receive all chapters issued to date and all remaining chapters as they are issued.

Also available now: BookThink's complete Gold Edition in PDF format. All 59 Gold Editions have been recently updated (and in some cases expanded) and combined into a PDF format e-book. A table of contents presents clickable report titles, and the entire document is searchable by keywords. The PDF format ensures 100% compatibility with all computers, tablets and smartphones, and it's easier than ever to take the Gold Edition with you on scouting trips. Purchase it here for $59.99. Click here to see several sample pages.

Important: If you have previously purchased a complete Gold Edition package, this e-book is available to you at no charge. Email me at editor@bookthink.com for your copy. Also, if you have purchased any Gold Edition issues either singly or in groups at any time, we will subtract those purchases from the price of the e-book. Again, email me at editor@bookthink.com and we will research your purchases and forward a discounted invoice reflecting them.