Supporter Story: John Neal Hoover

The Impact of The Bibliographical Society of America—A Personal Appreciation

As a college student in the early 1970s at Northwestern I remember loving to rest my eyes from doing homework by visiting the new periodical room in the huge new library just built on that campus’ lakefront. Seeing all of the new periodicals and magazines on every conceivable subject—row upon row—was like candy to a young reader.  Whole new worlds opened up in those periodical stacks of a now bygone era and I was particularly fascinated by journals on books and the history of book collections. Bibliography was a new term to an eighteen year old; I had noticed in the higher level courses in the quarterly class time schedules courses on the “Literature of Medieval History” and so forth for the graduate students, and of course term papers called for “bibliographies”, but when I came across in those stacks an elegantly printed scholarly journal called the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, I knew somehow that I was leafing through something very special, something calling me as a young student into the world of books, something like a letter from home. I knew that this was  for me, and as the years have gone by a long run of PBSA has never left my office shelves.

After college and library school, my first conferences were not ALA or AHA, but the annual meeting of BSA. It was exhilarating to meet so many like-minded, dedicated students  of the book and book history. I was very proud to be able to host a regional BSA meeting or two in St. Louis at my institution, and by the time of the 100th Anniversary celebration of BSA in 2004 I solicited the work of every rare book colleague in St. Louis, where BSA was founded in 1904, behind a noteworthy celebration which I remember vividly to this day. We even managed fireworks on the riverfront viewed from the deck of a riverboat on a crisp fall evening all those years ago. Many of the celebrants from across the country who attended  that meeting are no longer with us except in fine memory as well as some splendid articles published in PBSA. I remember saying goodbye to them that night and pledging to see them at the 200th BSA Anniversary in 2104. 

I won’t be able of course to hold that promise, but BSA itself has built such a strong organization through the journal, through its past publications, through its donors and members that it will last. It will last for new students visiting its website. For new researchers studying its papers. For scholars investigating new paths of interdisciplinary studies using bibliographical methods at the core of their research. Even though technology and change in the world occurs for everything and everyone, to me, the Bibliographical Society of America has a timeless quality which welcomes scholarship in any generation past, present and future. As the only national bibliographical society in this country, it has been passed down for nearly 125 years from generation to generation by individuals who built a legacy of humanistic scholarship based on the book in its kaleidoscopic variation that is unrivaled and unmatched.

I am very proud to support BSA as the central pillar of bibliographical studies in this country. For two generations I have encouraged others to use BSA as a compass in the vast world of books. I hope you will do the same with your generosity to our shared, lasting organization as it moves in many innovated ways forward, thanks to you. 

John Hoover, Past President of the Bibliographical Society of America , 2008-2012, holds the John Neal Hoover 2014 Endowed Directorship at the St. Louis Mercantile Library Association. He and his institution have supported BSA through funding for publications, events, a bibliographical prize, and research fellowships.