Kenneth Karmiole

Kenneth Karmiole is an American bookseller and philanthropist. He is President of Kenneth Karmiole, Bookseller, Inc., located in Santa Monica, California, established in 1976, an antiquarian bookselling firm specializing in early printed books.

Karmiole provides financial support to various libraries and educational programs in Southern California; he has established endowment funds at UCLA and at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). The UCSB endowment is for the purchase of rare books. The endowments at UCLA include an annual lecture series on the History of the Book Trade at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library; an endowment for the purchase of rare books & manuscripts at the discretion of the UCLA University Librarian; and endowments for financial aid to students in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. An endowment for Archival Studies programs and speakers at the UCLA GSE & IS was established in 2013. Professor Heather MacNeil of the University of Toronto was the first lecturer. Another endowment, begun in 2015, is the Kenneth Karmiole Endowed Research Fellowship at the UCLA Library. The individual awarded this endowment will present a public lecture upon the completion of their research. In 2016, an endowment was created at The Book Club of California, the Kenneth Karmiole Endowed Lecture on the History of the Book Trade in California and the West. The first annual lecture will be held in the Fall of 2017, and will be presented in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Karmiole currently serves on the advisory committees of the California Rare Book School, the UCLA Research Library Board of Visitors, and the Library Council at UCSB. He is a member of the Director’s Advisory Council of the William Andrews Clark Library and of the Board of Visitors of the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. Since the 1970s Karmiole has served three terms on the National Board of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America. He was the president of the Southern California Chapter of the ABAA in 2012 and 2013. In 2015, he was elected a Director of The Book Club of California and serves as the Co-Chair of the Membership and Development Committee.

Karmiole received the Distinguished Alumni Award for 2011 from the UCLA Library and Information Studies Alumni Association. His article about collecting books in the digital age appeared in The Journal of the Book Club of Washington.