BOOKS, BOOK COLLECTING, BOOK SELLING AND BINDING

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Personal book collection and bibliography

I am interested in the history and nature of writing, printing, publishing, binding and bibliography in general, in particular in England and Scotland. I have from time to time given lectures on the effects of writing and printing.

Over the years my wife Sarah Harrison and I have built up a considerable collection of books, many of which have fed into my work. About half of these are in my own private collection and can be accessed through a specially written bibliographic program.

I shall develop a section on the collecting, indexing and arranging of my books: these are a few preliminary ideas from elsewhere.

Sarah has been cataloguing my library and this is now finished. It makes it possible to develop my library with more efficiency.


Book selling and binding: Bracton Books

Over the years I have been involved in helping to advise Sarah in what is now one of the largest second-hand anthropology second collection for sale in Europe, Bracton Books.

Our first idea was to specialize in law books so the company was named after Sir Henry de Bracton, the great medieval English lawyer, and was registered as a business in February 1981. I have been an academic academic adviser to the business (which is affiliated to the Royal Anthropological Institute) and specializes in in history, anthropology, law and the social sciences.

The computer bibliographic program (devised by Michael Bryant and Sarah Harrison) 'BRACSORT' is also the one which which contains an index to my personal books.

For a number of years (c.1981-1998), a bookbinder (Clive Bovill) also worked on the premises and Sarah Harrison still does a little binding. She also has a large collection of books on binding, paper conservation etc.