An always brilliant keynote from an established bookseller or collector opens the seminar on the first afternoon, and sets the tone for what follows over the next few days. A comprehensive guide to cataloguing and its accompanying workshop sit alongside introductory sessions on binding styles and book illustration, modern firsts and ephemera, provenance and fakes & forgeries. As well as the keynote, a Q&A panel discussion later in the week gives students the opportunity to hear from current rare- and second-hand booksellers – several of them previous YABS attendees – about the challenges and rewards of starting their own business. Visits to some of York’s best and most inviting rare book shops, a tour of the spectacular collection at York Minster Library, and hands-on printing practice at the Thin Ice press end successive days, and allow attendees to see in person what we’ve been banging on about in the seminars. A visit to set-up at the York Antiquarian Book Fair, run by the brilliant PBFA, rounds off the week and gives YABS students a behind-the-scenes look at the business of a book fair.

This is my third year on the YABS faculty, and every year I’ve reached Friday morning simultaneously knackered and energised by the week that’s just gone (and I’m the faculty slacker: with superhuman stamina, and helped by superhuman amounts of caffeine, most of my colleagues leave YABS to go directly to exhibit at the York book fair that weekend). Year on year, the cohorts of attendees – more than 40 strong – are infectiously enthusiastic and enquiring without exception. They come from a variety of book-related and book-unrelated backgrounds, too. In the past couple of years we’ve welcomed new and established booksellers, librarians and special collections curators, certainly; but we’ve also seen recent graduates (of STEM subjects as well as the humanities), retirees, and even a war photographer considering a career change. There are no prerequisites other than an interest in books and the trade, and every year there are a raft of scholarships on offer, generously funded by book dealers, domestic and international book trade associations – this year included the ABA, PBFA, ILAB and the Swedish Association - and other partner organisations. These scholarships variously cover the full and partial costs of attending the course, and staying in beautiful York.