News & Updates
Sunday: Presidents' Meeting
Sunday, September 23rd: ILAB Presidents’ Meeting
Election day: There were many items on the agenda of the annual Presidents’ Meeting: the reports given by each President about this years activities of their national associations, Olga Tarakanova’s very interesting report of the progress within the re-organized and re-named Russian Guild of Antiquarian Booksellers (GAK), the publication of the new ILAB Directory, the upcoming ILAB Congress and Book Fair in Paris 2014, the ILAB Internships, a compendium of import and export regulations, website improvements, a workshop discussion about the future of antiquarian book fairs, and finally: the elections. After two years as ILAB President Arnoud Gerits retired from the Committee, as well as Alain Marchiset and ILAB’s life-time treasurer Poul Jan Poulsen, who had been the brain and soul of ILAB for more than 20 years, in which he very carefully took care of the League’s finances. “It is very unlikely”, Arnoud Gerits wrote in his report which was read in his absence, “that we will ever again have a Treasurer like Poul, willing to devote so many years to the League, serving the League so well, so long and with so much devotion.” For his most excellent work he was awarded ILAB Member of Honour and ILAB Treasurer of Honour.
Standing ovations for Tom Congalton (United States) who was elected as the new ILAB President. Immediate Past President Arnoud Gerits honoured his successor:
“Tom Congalton, over a long period of time, has shown his great commitment to the League and his concise, short but always accurate comments on various topics, his impartial but clever and clear judgements, and his capacity to quickly see and understand the essence of a problem, make him the perfect new President of ILAB. He has been a wonderful Vice-President and I owe him a lot of thanks for his unfailing commitment, support and intelligent contributions to our discussions. To continue the metaphor coined by Adrian Harrington in 2010: the Ship of ILAB is safe in the good hands of Tom.”
The Presidents voted for Norbert Donhofer (Austria) as ILAB Vice-President, for Paul Feain (Australia) as Treasurer and for Ulrich Hobbeling (Germany) as General Secretary. Umberto Pregliasco (Italy), Gonzalo Fernandéz Pontes (Spain) and Michel Bouvier (France) joined the ILAB Committee as new members.
Meanwhile the spouses got an insight into the secrets of the Swiss cuisine: They learnt how to make cheese at the Emmental Show Dairy.
