REPORT ON THE 2012 PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION NBS MEETINGS

NBS events went well at this week's ANA convention in Philadelphia. On Thursday, about 40 people attended our symposium which was a panel discussion about "Auction catalogs from various perspectives" For details, see: www.coinbooks.org/events .

Following that the NBS Board met for its annual business meeting. The board voted to contribute $1000 to the ANA library (as we have done before) and to donate $5000 to the ANS library, a significant increase over our past contributions. This decision was the result of discussing both NBS' strong financial position and current needs in the ANS library. I have been told that it is most likely to help the ANS restore a part-time cataloger position that was at risk. Cataloging, of course, is essential to make acquisitions accessible to library users. If you are ever in New York, I strongly recommend that you plan to visit the ANS and spend time in the library. The great collection and helpful staff makes research there productive and quite fast.

On Friday, the NBS general meeting was also well attended, also by almost 40 people. Treasurer David Sundman reported that our membership increased by about 15 members, helped by articles about NBS written by Brad Karoleff and Joel Orosz in Coin World, and Wayne Homren in The E-Sylum.

We were very pleased to announce winners of this year's NBS awards for articles in The Asylum. James Higby won the "Jack Collins Award for Best New Writer in the Asylum 2011" for his article, "Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Week to Give Up Sniffing Books". Pete Smith won the first "Joel J. Orosz NBS Writer's Award for Best Article in the Asylum" 2011 for his article "Three Degrees of Dave Bowers".

Kerry Wetterstrom of The Celator and Steve Roach of Coin World discussed the challenges and future of numismatic publishing. It was quite intriguing to hear the similarities (and a few differences) between the running of a quarterly publication for a smaller somewhat more specialized audience and running a weekly/monthly publication with a larger audience.

We then concluded the meeting with an auction of about two dozen donated lots which raised $3420. This auction is a big part of why NBS remains financially strong every year and can keep dues low while also being able to support two important numismatic libraries. This is made possible by the donors (Dan Hamelberg, Pierre Fricke, Whitman Publishing, George Kolbe, Dennis Tucker, and myself), buyers, and those people who are sometimes overlooked but are crucial to any auction: the underbidders.

NBS also had information and membership applications at the American Numismatic Society's table. I personally signed up a new member (well, a lapsed member returning to the fold) and, hopefully, our outreach will produce a few more members from this year's ANA convention. Unfortunately, I never actually got to the one exhibit in the numismatic literature class so I'll have to leave that to another attendee to describe.

I encourage all members to consider exhibiting literature at the ANA or regional conventions as well as writing for the Asylum. Please get in touch with me or any board member or David Yoon, our editor if you are considering writing an article and have any questions.

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