Pacific Northwest Chapter Meeting in Portland, Oregon

by Ed Smith
We had nine members present for our Chapter meeting in a Portland restaurant the evening of March 25. Taylor Bowie, Priscilla Lowry-Gregor, David Gregor, Peter Siegel, Charlie Seluzicki, Bob Gavora, John Lang, Elisabeth Burdon and Ed Smith, along with two guests. Taylor ran a tight meeting concerning the upcoming merger with Northern California, our website, the welcoming of two new members (Elisabeth and Mark Gappa), status of our new PNW Directory, Peter gave the treasury report, there was discussion of future projects including the continuation of Mike Ginsberg's video project in Seattle, the May Seattle fair (and October), ways to outreach, and reach out for new members, a synopsis of the San Francisco board meeting, a letter was read from Mark Gappa and Elisabeth gave a nice biographical talk, and more. It was a pleasure to be in Portland and hang with our members. We all had a fine dinner (chapter did not pay!) and retired to the bar at our hotel for further discussions. Ahead lies the merger, and many other things, and it seems a good idea to study both our chapter bylaws as well as Northern California's and there is a dialogue established with our chapter to the south. So we feel confidant a smooth merger will take place by April 2011. Our ABAA President, Stuart Bennett says we must be ready, with all officers elected, and all things in place, by the end of 2010. We will be ready and welcome the merger!

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GEEK LOVE in Portland, Oregon and more...

In Portland Oregon, on Wednesday April 24, as a guest of ABAA member Charlie Seluzicki, I visited Special Collections at Lewis & Clark College. My wife and I were in town for the photo show at the Benson Hotel (www.photolucida.org). I wanted to see the special exhibit of the books of author Katherine Dunn that was setup in the Aubrey R. Watzek Library, running from January 21 to May 29. The title of the exhibition: "After Twenty Careful Years of Not Revealing Myself to You..." (the quotation is from the end of GEEK LOVE) EXPLORING KATHERINE DUNN IN PRINT. 

There was the limited fancy edition of GEEK LOVE limited to 32 copies in a special binding and clam‐shell box designed and individually hand painted by Mare Blocker (http://www.mkimberlypress.com/featured_books.html) the new book of boxing essays (2), and all the others were behind glass, including; ATTIC, TRUCK, 3 DAY Fox: A Tattoo, Poetry Cards, MYSTERY GIRLS' CIRCUS, DEATH SCENES (introduction), FREAK LIKE ME, The Slice, Why Do Men Have Nipples, and more. For a PDF of the exhibition, as well as the printed introduction by Charlie Seluzicki, click here and then click the PDF: http://library.lclark.edu/specialcollections/exhibits.html

Also some early work when Dunn was a member of the Portland based group loosely known as The Impossibilists during the 70s. Rare printed poetry cards and mimeographed issues of their irregularly issued illustrated manifestos. It is in these publications that the first excerpt from GEEK LOVE appears.  We were then allowed into the inner sanctum of Special Collections
(http://library.lclark.edu/) where we met Doug M. Erickson, Head of Special Collections College Archives and also Paul Merchant, the William Stafford Archivist and Special Collections Associate (Paul's father was one of the world's great Shakespeare scholars). We swooned at all the fine things that were housed in the inner sanctum including the Lewis & Clark holdings, a Thomas Jefferson document hanging on the wall, plus paintings related to the William Stafford collection also housed at Special Collections. We then drove off campus and had a nice lunch while Doug talked to us about security and how the library handles things. Cameras mounted on walls, etc. Doug explained though nothing had disappeared yet from the special collections, plenty of volumes had gone missing from the library itself. I gave him some numbers about theft of books and documents, maps; only 2‐5% of stolen material is ever recovered, and; 70% of rare book thefts in Europe are 'inside jobs' and a whopping 80% are 'inside jobs' in the U.S. http://www.rbms.info/committees/security/index.shtml Staggering numbers. 

And Doug admitted that being the repository and guardian of rare books and documents one has to have trust in his team, which he does. Doug spent the rest of our lunch speaking about how important the relationship is between librarian and bookseller. He admitted without booksellers like Charlie and many others the library would be much poorer in knowledge and documents. He stressed how important the relationship was because of the knowledge of booksellers and their resourcefulness and 'never give up attitude." But the main thing was the interest in things booksellers had, so much interest and curiosity where one thing led to another, then another, and yet another. Doug also said that because of booksellers the library is much richer in material, a lot of which were donated, and much that continues to come in. It was a fine day in Portland Oregon with all the trees coming out and after our lunch was over we came away with a better understanding of how special collections work, how it is very much a team effort, and how important the bond between bookseller and librarian is.

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