Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis. Jaargang 20

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Introduction

Founded in 1993, the Dutch Book Historical Society (Nederlandse Boekhistorische Vereniging, nbv) is a society for those who enjoy books both old and new, and in every shape and form. The nbv is a society with about 650 members, ranging from prominent academics to amateur researchers and from journalists to antiquarians. It publishes the Jaarboek voor Nederlandse boekgeschiedenis (Dutch book history yearbook), providing an overview of new research in the field of Dutch and Flemish book history.

At the tenth anniversary of the nbv the yearbook was dedicated to developments in the publishing business, especially the book trade and publishing houses in the Netherlands in the second half of the twentieth century. In 2010 the yearbook was devoted to the state of book historical research in the Netherlands. On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the nbv in 2013 the editors wanted to look beyond the Low Countries, to see what happens in the field of book research and book history in the rest of the world. What are the international developments and evolutions in the field and what are the challenges for the future?

We imagined an attractive yearbook that expresses an internationally shared (academic) passion for books and puts the various national book historical societies on the world map. In an invitation letter we wrote that we were looking for ‘high-quality authors, local and renowned specialists, who would be able and willing to write a historiographical overview of book-historical activities’ in their countries. We asked explicitly for a state of affairs in the field of book science, current insights and results in the field of book science and the future vision of the book-historical society.

We received as many as thirteen enthusiastic contributions from around the world. In random order: China (Frederik Nesta); Japan (Peter Kornicki); Spain (Benito Rial Costas); South America (Cesar Manrique); Great Britain (David McKitterick); Belgium (Stijn van Rossem); Germany (Christine Haug, Slávka Rude-Porubská and Wolfgang Schmitz); Austria (Peter Frank, Johannes Frimmel and Murray Hall); South Africa (Archie Dick); Australia (Roger Osborne), Norway (Aina Nøding), Sweden (Rikard Wingård) and Denmark (Anders Toftgaard).

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The articles appeared to be quite different, both in content and form. All authors have taken the request very seriously, but they have also answered it in their very own way. Browsing this yearbook, the reader will encounter no uniformity in the structure of the articles. The articles can of course be read independently from each other, but we also hope that comparing the approaches and views expressed in them will yield new insights.

A few things can be said about the content of the articles. In some contributions, the current state of affairs is explained from the general history of the book in a particular country. The study of the Chinese book, for example, has a long history, dating back to the ninth century when woodblock printing first appeared. Until fairly recently, Chinese book history was primarily the domain of scholars in China and the adjacent regions that used Chinese characters for their own literature. In Japan, studies of the history of the book concentrate on the Edo period (1603-1868), when commercial publishing came of age and when in a short period books became common goods to be bought or borrowed by almost everyone. In South America in the nineteenth century, the study of the book was all about the process of consolidation of national identities and therefore in the creation of national bibliographical repositories and national libraries.

The biggest surprise was that ‘book science’ and ‘book history’ have a different meaning in almost every country. In the Netherlands book science includes all cultural-historical, economic, social-cultural, sociological and professional research in the book, and archiving, preservation and distribution of relevant documents and data. Swedish book research spans even more areas connected to book history: author studies, history of graphic design, textual criticism etcetera. In Norway reception studies are also considered to be part of book science. Research areas range from core topics such as the history of reading, the book market and libraries, to areas such as censorship, editing or media history, where book history provides one of several perspectives. In Spain, on the other hand, book science is almost exclusively the domain of analytical bibliographers. The different views of what does and does not belong to ‘book science’ are related to research traditions in the different countries, the status of the discipline and its institutional infrastructure.

In the Netherlands, the study of the book has a long tradition and in the twentieth century the history of the book became an academic discipline. In a survey of the history of the book in the Low Countries,¹ Marieke van Delft described the development of book science from the appointment of the first extraordinary professor of Book History and Bibliography at the University of Amsterdam in 1954 up to the state of affairs in the twenty-first century. This first chair was founded by the Dr. P.A. Tielestichting, a key organisation promoting the study of the book. Since 2003, the Tielestichting has taken the form of a joint venture for book science in which almost all scientific and other organisations and institutions in this field are represented. Currently there are three Tiele-chairs in Dutch universities: one at the University of Amsterdam (paleography and codicology), and two at the University of Leiden (Dutch history of the book in the early modern peri-

1 M. van Delft [et al.] (eds.), New perspectives in book history. Contributions from the Low Countries. Leiden 2006, 7-15.

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od and Dutch history of the book in the modern period). The Universities of Amsterdam and Leiden have ma courses in book science and codicology. And then there is of course the Dutch Book Historical Society (nbv), specific to the field of the book.

Although Belgian book historians have broadened their horizon internationally in terms of methodology, topic and the dissemination of their research, book science in Flanders has still not found an institutional port. There is only the Flemish Book Historical Society (vwb), founded in 1996. This society has increased its activities and membership over the years but according to Stijn Van Rossem, there is less and less place for research within the academic libraries. Also, there are no book history courses in the Flemish universities, and certainly no research group or book science programme.

Archie Dick writes that by comparison with many countries, book history in South Africa represents a growing but modest body of work and there is still no institutional home for research and tuition programmes of book and print culture. Plans for a research-driven Centre for the Book at the National Library of South Africa even evaporated when it became presentist and development-oriented in the 1990s.

In Germany, on the other hand, book science has become a significant academic discipline with various institutions and facilities both inside and outside universities, special and research libraries, scholarly societies and associations. In contrast to the situation in Germany, book science in Austria has not yet established itself as a field of study at universities, although, in order to create a common forum for book historians in Austria, the Gesellschaft für Buchforschung in Österreich was founded in 1998. The main goal of the association is to initiate and promote book historical research projects and to encourage links with international research.

Although the existence of the leading international scholary association for historians of print culture, sharp (The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing), suggests otherwise, the developments in several countries in book research turn out to be especially nationally oriented. However, there are various signs of a growing awareness of the need to seek international connections rather than to construct national histories. Between the Scandinavian countries, there are long-standing traditions of cooperation in the field of book history. An example of an interscandinavian network is The Nordic forum for book history. On an infrastructural level digitisation and database projects are flourishing. The Swedish ProBok, a database for information on bookbindings and provenance from the hand press period, is a case in point.

For the United Kingdom, David McKitterick signals a growing interest in the history of information that suggests a new stress on the relationship between print and other forms of communication. He believes that such research requires international outlooks. Also in Australia en New-Zealand the first wave of national foundational studies laid the groundwork for a reassessment of the national in the context of international or transnational studies. In his contribution, Roger Osborne describes two case studies, which combined suggest future directions and possibilities for book history that examine much broader inter-cultural relations, transfers and exchanges in projects that will need to embrace collaboration and group authorship. The answer to the question ‘what

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are the challenges in the future?’ that emerges in most of the contributions, therefore, is that book research must get a trans- and international dimension.

This yearbook contributes to this by offering an initial overview of the state of affairs in the field of book research and book history worldwide and the international developments and evolutions in the field. We hope that it will be an incentive for a more global perspective on book science and that it will lead to new discussions, insights and results and, above all, more international cooperation. The authors of the various contributions have made a start. We are very grateful to them.

Sandra van Voorst

Editor-in-chief of the Dutch book history yearbook - Jaarboek voor Nederlandse boekgeschiedenis