The tenth annual conference of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP) will be held in London between the 10th and the 13th of July 2002. The lead institution is the Institute of English Studies in the School of Advanced Study, University of London; the British Library and the Wellcome Library are co-sponsors.

In the SHARP tradition, we welcome proposals for individual papers and entire sessions dealing with the creation, diffusion, or reception of the written or printed word or image in any historical period or place. We also seek to draw on the particular interests and strengths of the institutions organising the conference. To this end there are two specific themes on which we would particularly welcome submissions. The first is the history of the medical book; the second is digitisation as it impinges on book history.

Sessions will take place in Senate House (the administrative and academic centre of the federal University of London in which the prestigious University of London Library is housed) and in the British Library and in the Wellcome Library. Apart from the usual panel and plenary sessions there will be opportunities to visit archives, libraries and other sites of interest in and around London, including the publishers' archives at the University of Reading.

Each panel will usually last one-and-a-half hours and will consist of three papers. Each paper should last a maximum of twenty minutes, thus allowing ten minutes' discussion of each paper. Proposals for individual papers should be the equivalent of one page maximum (i.e. 450 words), giving the paper title, a short abstract and brief biographical identification. Session proposals should include a cover sheet explaining the theme and goals and separate sheets for each paper.

A small number of travel grants will be available to trainee scholars (those currently writing PhD theses) and to independent scholars (those who are not members of institutions which would normally be expected to support travel to an academic conference.) If you wish to be considered for such a grant you should indicate this at the end of your proposal. Please note that we always receive more applications for grants than we have grants to give.

The deadline for submissions is Wednesday, 31 October 2001. Proposals should be sent by email, if possible, to the address below.

Those who do not have access to email should send a hard copy of the proposal to the address provided.