Private Press Countries over 30 years

The table below shows the number of Private Presses located in various countries that printed books between 1978 and 2007. The data is taken from the annual Private Press Books digests published by the Private Libraries Association. With a few exceptions, the digests feature only Presses that printed in English, and only Presses that used letterpress, and printed books of eight or more pages. Also available is a list of all the Press names that have been counted below.
CountryNo. of PressesComments
AUSTRALIA171 of these later moved to CANADA
BELGIUM1 
CANADA821 of these moved here from AUSTRALIA
ENGLAND2012 of these later moved to WALES, and 1 moved here from U.S.A.
FRANCE6 
GERMANY5 
IRELAND2 
ISRAEL1 
ITALY8 
MEXICO1 
NORTHERN IRELAND1 
NETHERLANDS31 
NEW ZEALAND14 
RUSSIA1 
SCOTLAND9 
SOUTH AFRICA2 
SWEDEN1 
SWITZERLAND1 
U. S. A.2601 of these later moved to ENGLAND and 1 moved here from WALES
WALES71 of these later moved to U.S.A. and 2 moved here from ENGLAND
TOTAL651 
Note 1The above totals only include the countries where the Press was located when its book was printed.
Some Presses have moved country since, but their new country has not been counted.
Note 2A few Presses changed their name, but retained the same owner and machines, and these have been counted as separate Presses.
Note 3One (U.S.A.) Press retained the same name, but moved to different states and owners. This has been counted as three separate Presses.
Note 4Five Presses (1 AUSTRALIA, 1 ENGLAND, 1 U.S.A., 2 WALES) are double counted, as they moved country but continued printing.

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Written by David Bolton and last updated 23 December 2012