[3] In 1947 representatives from five countries, Denmark, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden, met in Amsterdam to discuss the formation of such an organization, with the aim of establishing open markets, to foster friendship and understanding, and to counteract the animosity and suspicion engendered by World War Two.
[5] The ILAB was formally incorporated in Copenhagen in September 1948, with ten participating countries, among them Belgium, Finland, Switzerland, Norway, Italy, Great Britain, France, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark.
The League publishes, and upholds, a code of ethics and good practice based on the wide experience of all its member nations.
[6] The Prize of $10,000 is awarded every fourth year to the author(s) of the most original and outstanding 'book about a book' in the broad field of bibliography worldwide.
Certain categories are not eligible, notably manuscripts, catalogues of books intended for sale and translations of works appearing in another language.
The purpose of the Prize is to draw attention to what it regards as the best academic work being done in the field, to reward and honour it in appropriate terms, and to publicise the League's support for original scholarship.
He was succeeded by Dr. Frieder Kocher-Benzing (of Stuttgart) who was the longest serving Secretary presiding over the third to eleventh Prize, then by Konrad Meuschel (Germany), Raymond Kilgarriff (Great Britain), and Mitsuo Nitta (Japan).
The first ILAB Prize for Bibliography was awarded in 1967 to Jean Peeters-Fontainas, followed by famous scholars like Claus Nissen, Wytze Hellinga, I. C. Koeman, Francois Weil, Gerhard Dünnhaupt, Anthony Hobson, and Lucas Heinrich Wüthrich.
The 15th ILAB Breslauer Prize was awarded in 2010 to Lotte Hellinga and Jan Storm van Leeuwen [nl] for the Catalogue of Books printed in the XVth Century now in the British Library, BMC.
They are cultural and social events held every two years in another country, where the delegates have the possibility to study the treasures of book printing and arts, and to deepen business contacts.
ILAB also sponsors international book fairs organised by the national associations, as for example in Paris, London, New York City, San Francisco, Sydney, Stuttgart, Madrid, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Tokyo or in the Scandinavian capitals.