These papers were written by individuals and teams across the country to provide a common foundation in book history studies for participants in the 1997 founding conference for a History of the Book in Canada/LHistoire du livre et de limprimé au Canada held at the National Library in Ottawa. Several of the papers (Maritimes, British Columbia, Yukon) have been revised since that meeting.
We thank all the authors for their work and for permitting us to disseminate the papers in electronic format to a wider audience.