Norbert Donhofer - President of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB)

At the Ordinary General Meeting on 13th April 2014 in Paris the presidents of ILAB’s 22 national member associations voted for Norbert Donhofer (Austria) as new ILAB President. He succeeds Tom Congalton (United States) who served as President from 2012 to 2014; and he will be supported by ILAB Vice-President Gonzalo Fernandéz Pontes (Spain).

Norbert Donhofer is well prepared for the duties he will be facing in the upcoming two years of his presidency. Donhofer joined the ILAB Committee in 2008 where he took over a large number of responsibilities. Under his guidance the ILAB Internship Program has been set up which enables young booksellers to study the trade in different countries and from different perspectives. Meanwhile ILAB interns spent several months in Spain, Hungary, Austria, Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom, Australia and the United States, where they were taught and hosted by internationally reknown ILAB booksellers. The ILAB Internship Program has become a central part of ILAB’s activities to support young booksellers and to help building up the future of the international trade. Norbert Donhofer also played an important part, when the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Associations of Russia and Hungary became ILAB members in the years 2009 and 2010. Donhofer’s career began in 1981, when he started working at the Viennese antiquarian bookshop V.A. Heck after graduating at the University of Vienna. Before he established his own business in 2003, he had been managing director at F. A. Deuticke for 20 years. From 1988 to 2012 Donhofer served as Committee Member of the Austrian Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association (VAO), from 2000 to 2003 as Vice-President and from 2003 to 2012 as VAO President. In 1998 he organized the 34th ILAB Congress and 17th ILAB International Antiquarian Book Fair in Vienna. For his excellent organization of the Annual Meeting of the Association International de Bibliophilie (AIB) in 2009, in cooperation with the ILAB Presidents’ Meeting, he was elected a member of honour of the AIB.

Gonzalo Fernandéz Pontes serves as Vice-President in the new ILAB Committee. In his work he lays special emphasis on the prevention and detection of book thefts. As supervisor of the ILAB Stolen Book Database he has been coordinating ILAB’s efforts in this important field for two years. Pontes has been a rare book dealer for nearly 25 years. He got a degree in classical history and archeology and had taken part in several excavations in the Middle East, before he established his bookshop in Madrid in 1991 which specializes in travel, exploration and Spanish history. He is lecturer at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid where he teaches summer courses in the antiquarian book trade. As President of the Spanish Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association (AILA) Pontes organized the 38th ILAB Congress and 22nd ILAB International Antiquarian Book Fair in Madrid in 2008.

In further elections the presidents voted for Robert D. Fleck (United States) as Treasurer, who follows Paul Feain from Australia in this position. Robert D. Fleck had served as ILAB President from 2002 to 2005. Sally Burdon (Australia) and Stuart Bennett (United States) also became new members of the ILAB Committee.

ILAB Committee 2014

President: Norbert Donhofer

Vice President: Gonzalo Fernández Pontes

Treasurer: Robert D. Fleck

General Secretary: Ulrich Hobbeling

Members: Stuart Bennett, Michel Bouvier, Sally Burdon, Umberto Pregliasco

Immediate Past President: Tom Congalton

41st ILAB Congress and 25th ILAB International Antiquarian Book Fair

11-13 April and 13-16 April 2014, Paris (France)

It’s the biannual gathering of the world’s leading experts in the antiquarian book trade: The Ordinary General Meeting of ILAB was held on the last day of the Salon International du Livre Ancien at the Grand Palais (Paris) which is in this year’s edition the 25th ILAB International Antiquarian Book Fair. The fair will immediately be followed by the 41st ILAB Congress 2014, organized by the Syndicat national de la Librairie Ancienne et Moderne (SLAM) which celebrates its centenary as the second oldest and one of the biggest and most influential associations of the trade. Click here for more information.