Kalamazoo 2012

Figured it was about time to post something about it for this year. I'm registered - 4 years in a row which is the best I've been able to do since I started going.

For those unfamiliar with it, this is for the International Congress on Medieval Studies held each year in Kalamazoo, Michigan. This is the 47th annual gathering and will be held on May 10-13. In my opinion, if you're interested in Medieval History and you can make it work, you should absolutely attend.

The website including a schedule and registration information is: http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/

And if you want to know what I think about it, I have a Kalamazoo page on my blog: http://medievalhistorygeek.wordpress.com/kalamazoo-icms/

You could get lost there so I'd suggest starting with my 2010 recruitment post and work your way from there. BTW, we've idly talked about an LT get together in the past. Any interest in actually trying to make that happen?

I have my paper program as well as the one on my iPad, have registered and reserved a room, and am already checking out interesting sessions 8-)

And I'd love to plan a get- together, of course!

I just registered today, for the fifth straight year. Have the paper programs come out already? I guess I'll get mine eventually, then. I'm giving a paper again, in session 90. The title of the session is "Musician as Profession in the Middle Ages", and my paper is "Early Tudor Musicians in the London Livery Companies".

I'd be up for a get-together, if the logistics work. I always stay with my friends in Kalamazoo, so I can't always do things in the evenings, unless I specifically plan them.

I pay the extra fee to get my program early each year, though it's less urgent now that I can download the .pdf and register on line, but I usually have a trip to Europe just before Kzoo complicating my plotting. I have to make a note of that session!!

So, does anybody want to try to get together this year? I'm still trying to finish my paper, which I'm giving Thursday afternoon at 1:30 (session 90). i plan to be at the book display first thing Thursday morning, probably hitting up Boydell & Brewer and Cambridge first. Though this year I already bought five new Boydell & Brewer books from their online 48-hour sale a few weeks ago -- 35% off, free shipping. Almost as good as the 40% off for display copies at the conference, and I didn't have to lug them home.

I'm usually waiting by the doors when the exhibit opens, just not sure on which side. I have a tendency to get snagged by Ashgate if I go in on the Fox side, Cambridge from the other direction.

I usually start on the side by registration, which I guess is your "other" side. I don't necessarily get there right at 8:00, since I don't stay in the dorms, but with my friends in town, who give me a ride to campus. But I'll be there as early as I can, and hopefully I'll see you there, Curt! Especially now that we've exchanged phone numbers.

I go by, "David Brown side" and "harp side." (grin)

I bought 19 books today, 18 of which I was able to take away. However, several are for other people, so those won't go into my LT rolls.

I think I got through somewhere between a third and half of the exhibit area today - for those who are there, I started on the Harrison/Stinson (David Brown Books) side, went through Ashgate/Penguin, hung a right to the end of the row and my 1st stop tomorrow morning is Loome.

At this moment, 14 books are in my possession, I need to pick 9 up Saturday and 1 will be shipped.

I also met David which was cool.

Intermediate book - buying report.

25 - In my possession
10 - pick up tomorrow afternoon
2 - to ship
1 - more to buy if Powell's doesn't sell it by tomorrow morning - I came back to the room and checked to make sure I didn't already have it

Grand Total (Interim - I still have to walk through the book exhibit again) - 37, probably 38. Much better - the 60-plus the past two years was a bit extreme.

OK, Here's the final damage:

39 books - 37 in my possession, 2 to be shipped.

17 paperback, 22 Hardcover
21 from my wishlist, 18 not

And I bought a book I already had, which makes three. I'm going to post a separate thread about them and hope Tim (and everyone else) don't consider this a commercial ad or something. All three are quality books from respected publishers and I'll offer them at a pretty nice discount.

Edit: Almost forgot - I now own a book from Brill. Their display copies were 50% off, which means roughly 10% of what they had there would have fit in my budget.

Edit #2 - Dang I'm tired. These are tagged as "ICMS 2012"

Curt, it was great to meet you in person! First on the morning of the first day, and then by chance at the end of the last day at the Penn booth. A nice coda, or near-coda. After I saw you the second time, I made the rounds to pick up books and hit a few booths I hadn't yet managed to visit, such as Notre Dame, and I ended up buying a few more that I couldn't resist.

My final total was 45 books, but six of those were intended for other people (and in fact I gave them to those people today). So that makes 39, but one of those is a three-volume set with a single ISBN (the Records of Early English Drama Inns of Court set) that LT treats as a single work. So my LT library will only be augmented by 37. Another book I got is a paperback edition of a book I already have in hardcover (as I realized soon after buying it), but I'm going to add it and count it toward my total anyway, as I've done before in similar situations.

I managed to get all these books back to Chicago on the train this morning, but then I went out to the suburbs for most of the day before finally getting home tonight. I'll input my haul tomorrow night.

Curt, I see that our hauls this year included one book in common -- "Anglo-Saxons: Studies Presented to Cyril Roy Hart" from the David Brown table. And you got a few books I already have, including one that I just got recently -- "Leaders of the Anglo-Saxon Church" from Boydell & Brewer, which I got a couple of weeks ago in their online 48-hour sale for 35% off with free shipping. A couple of things you got, I had my eye on but didn't get, including "Alfred's Wars" from Boydell & Brewer.

I'm very interested in "Charlemagne's Survey of the Holy Land", which I don't remember seeing -- was it at the Scholar's Choice booth (the one with the jelly beans) with the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library volumes? Two years ago at Leeds, I saw Michael McCormick give a lunch talk on the subject matter of that book, and it sounded really interesting.

David - yes, that's exactly right. I had planned to buy nothing on the Carolingians this year. My Carolingian "to read" list is ponderous and I haven't read on them in over a year but I couldn't pass that one up. I know a grad student interning at DO, I should ask her why she doesn't convince them to have a booth.

I sometimes think my book purchasing method at Kalamazoo costs me a decent amount of money. I always start with the Academic Publishers first and visit the bookstores last. Particularly with Powell's, I often find books at the stores for substantially less than I just purchased them for from the publisher.

The problem is it takes so much longer to get through the used stores, particularly Loome and Powell's. I can whip through a publisher's booth in 15 minutes or so. Starting with the stores seems so inefficient.

I've now finished inputting my haul:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/dkathman&tag=kzoo%2B2012

If anyone's interested in reading about Kalamazoo, I've started to list all of the bog posts about it: http://medievalhistorygeek.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/kalamazoo-on-the-blogs/

And I always make lots of after-K'zoo blog posts, too many probably. Evenutally those will all be up on my Kalamazoo Blog page: http://medievalhistorygeek.wordpress.com/kalamazoo-icms/

Or you can check back and read 'em as I post 'em.

2nd try: I'll start with books this time. I bought very few, but one cost $60 with discount and seemed to weigh half a ton: The Archaeology of Medieval Europe, Vol. 2: Twelfth to Sixteenth Centuries After all, I already had its "brother", Vol. 1 from an earlier Kzoo. 8-) Not a lot else; I keep seeing familiar books! I also browsed less than in the past because I kept stopping for conversations with people I only see once a year and spent a LOT of time with the harpmaker--another story.
I ran into Curt repeatedly, and even ended up in the same session Sunday morning. I really wanted to hear what would happen in the question session after the first two papers, but had to leave before the third to head back.
By the time I got back from my spring trip to Europe, mostly along the Danube this time, I had completely forgotten I was going to find out who dkathman was--and I was actually in your audience! (I really enjoyed your paper, by the way. Being a musician then and there was involved!) Because I've reached the point where I'm dependent on the shuttle to get around the WMU campus nowadays, I left early because I had to get from Bernhard to Valley II by 3:30 the long way round and they don't always arrive when you want them. (I was late even so)

Sorry I didn't get to talk to you, erilarlo, but I'm glad you enjoyed my paper! I got some nice comments afterwards, including some from a former undergraduate professor of mine at Michigan State (History of the English Language, Old English, Chaucer) who I hadn't seen in 24 years.