The Alcuin Society is a voluntary association of people who care about the past, present and future of fine books. Founded in 1965 by Geoff Spencer and six other Vancouver bibliophiles, and maintained by the current board, it is the only non-profit organization in Canada dedicated to the entire range of interests related to books and reading. These interests include authorship, publishing, book de
sign and production, bookselling, book buying and collecting, printing, binding, papermaking, calligraphy and illustration. The Society’s two main goals are to promote a wider appreciation of books and reading and to support excellence in book design and production. In support of these goals, it sponsors educational programmes, publishes a journal, offers a prestigious award known as the Alcuin Society Awards for Excellence in Book Design in Canada, and the Robert R. Reid Award and Medal to recognise lifetime achievement, or extraordinary contributions, to the Book Arts in Canada. Martin at Tours, a man who cared deeply about books and literacy. As Charlemagne’s “Minister of Culture”, and a respected teacher, Alcuin encouraged the study and preservation of ancient texts, contributed to the development of the lowercase alphabet and helped establish numerous schools and libraries. As for the lettercase image at the top left of our web site the person at the lettercase is taken from an old illustration of a typesetter and is not meant to represent Alcuin or any other historical person. The Alcuin Society is interested in all the arts of the book; typography has been central to these arts for the last 500 years. Our coat-of-arms includes a quill pen and a knife to represent calligraphy and more abstractly, Alcuin is represented by a rose.
