1) How useful were the pre-course readings?

1: Quite. They set the intellectual stage for the course, although not strictly necessary. Anyone who has absorbed DesBib could follow the class. 2: Excellent. I've read widely in the field, and I found these very precise and illuminating. I'm glad to have read them and will refer to them in the future. I also liked the way PN made use of them...not directly, but much of the course is already in the readings. They are very useful. 3: I would have been lost without some of the readings, especially as they related to paper evidence. Other essays were important for refreshing my knowledge of other aspects of printing. 4-5: Very. 6: Very useful and necessary to understanding lectures. 7: Very useful. 8: Largely essential -- course went from readings onward. 9: Very useful. 10: The writings were difficult to obtain for those not associated with an institution.

2) Were the course syllabus and other materials distributed in class useful (or will they be so in the future, after you return home)?

1: Yes. 2: Yes!!! Excellent reader filled with useful documents...some quite useful for reference ([Gutenberg's] DK type samples, paper stock sizes). A Bonus! um, er,...could be packaged with more reference material and the color copies weren't numbered so there was some time cost. 3: The workbook was well conceived and very useful -- especially during discussion of specific examples. 4: Yes. 5: Very. 6: Useful in class -- not really labeled or organized to be useful later. Actually, no syllabus or course outline was given out. 7: Yes -- we weren't able to cover all of the class materials in depth, so I look forward to perusing them at leisure. 8: Yes -- very useful and will remain so. 9: No course syllabus; material very relevant and useful. 10: Yes.

3) Was the intellectual level of the course content appropriate?

1: Yes, exactly right. 2: When dealing with c15 printing -- a field so idiosyncratic and complex -- it is difficult to draw a line. I was thrilled with every section of each class period. At times I was lost...but rarely. If you do the reading in advance and have some sense of collation it all falls together. 3: Highest level. 4-7: Yes. 8: Yes -- high, and appropriate. 9: Yes.

4) If your course had field trips, were they effective?

1: Yes, both to the McGregor Room at UVa and to the Rosenwald Collection at the Library of Congress. Good to see examples of issues and characteristics of incunabula discussed in class. 2: A wonderful trip. (We went to see the Rosenwald collection at LC.) To have PN give analysis after analysis of book after book...it was a performance! It also added variety to the week. 3: Yes. 4: Yes; although it is a very long bus trip to DC, seeing Rosenwald incunables, and having PN talk about them, was pretty amazing. 5: Absolutely. Our trip to the Rosenwald Collection was a real treat. 6: Yes. 7: Yes. (Though the ride back from DC was harrowing, though no fault of RBS.) 8: Very well spent -- an essential element of the success of the course. Thanks also to the Library of Congress. 9: Yes. 10: We went to the Library of Congress and Special Collections; both were useful.

5) What did you like best about the course?

1: PN. He is so knowledgeable; I felt privileged to be a recipient of his considerable expertise. It was a pleasure to see the real books and hear him talk about them. I very much appreciated the emphasis placed on physical evidence -- what makes good evidence, how to know that a hypothesis is proved or disproved. 2: I was bowled over by PN's discussion of DK type and his recent work on the subject. This is what I came for, and I was not disappointed. I enjoyed, too, the relaxed, but still serious, manner with which the class was held. It at times really became a seminar. Still, the two sessions (or so) spent on DK type: amazing. 3: Learning about the level that required for bibliographical description. 4: PN's passing along a way of thinking about books. 5: PN! He has a wealth of knowledge on the subject (and many other subjects) which is unparalleled. 6: Lectures. 7: The instructor was wonderful, and the class was a nearly perfect mix -- the course material was inspiring as well. In short, I liked everything. 8: PN's lectures, including the wonderfully informative "tangents." His groundbreaking articles came alive, distilled for clear understanding of the major points, and open to discussion. Excellent! 9: PN. 10: Looking at incunabules.

6) How could the course have been improved?

1: 1) Some hands-on exercises. Specifically, to give us a chance to look individually at printed materials and determine mold side versus felt side, which side was printed first, watermark evidence, &c. This would have been most valuable on Tuesday when he was explaining how to recognize them. 2) Some topics here a little belabored and could have been shortened, giving more time for other topics, e.g., examples of faulty or ignorant scholarship were instructive, but they might have been given more concisely. 2: PN often opened with half-hour attacks (that's really what they were) on Histoire du Livre and English literary critics in general. At times -- and his guidance was always good and clear -- those became a bit gratuitous. As if one critic could stand for all. A more coherent statement would have worked. PN, though a VERY gracious critic, seemed at times reactionary. 3: Make it longer. 4: I wish we could have approached, with PN, a (short) book and had him do what he does in front of us (rather than have him talk only about the interesting points of any particular book). 6: Needs to be longer, or better, offer an advanced session similar to advanced DesBib. 7: More hours in the day. 8: Two weeks! 9: A second week! 10: The new title is inaccurate. I'd suggest going back to the old title, or changing it again to something like "Current Issues in C15 Bibliography."

7) We are always concerned about the physical well-being both of the RBS teaching collections and of materials owned by UVa's Special Collections. If relevant, what suggestions do you have for the improved classroom handling of such materials used in your course this week?

1: None of us touched anything except PN. His handling of materials was casual but not harmful. 2: Fine. 3: Things went very smoothly. 4: N/A. 6: I didn't see any problems. 7: I was impressed by the careful handling of teaching materials. 8-10: None.

8) If you attended the Sunday and/or Monday night lectures, were they worth attending?

1: Sunday night good; Monday night (Dagenais) good for post-lecture amusement, but not anything else. 2: Sunday night was pleasant. Monday night was an embarrassment -- an absolutely horrible lecture that gave a bad name to Medieval studies and to critical theory (quite a feat actually!). 3: It was an opportunity for the class to grow as a unit -- as we had specific jokes made about the speaker, and it seemed to bring us all together as a group. 4: Sunday went a little long. Monday's lecture was asinine, but it did give us entertainment in recalling it the entire week. 5: Lecture was amusing (Monday). 6: Sunday night lecture essential. This week, Monday's lecture was terrible -- get the hook!! 7: Sunday was good; Monday was less so. 8: Not impressed with this lecture. 9: For amusement value. 10: Yes for both.

9) If you attended Museum Night, was the time profitably spent?

2: Didn't attend. 4: N/A. 6: Yes, 10,000 times over. 7-8: N/A. 9: Did not, regrettably, attend. 10: N/A.

10) Did you get your money's worth? Any final thoughts?

1: Absolutely! I believe I have learned a great deal about c15 books and how they differ from later books and can immediately apply this knowledge to my job and to my professional activities. I am inspired by PN to pursue bibliographical research on my own, and he was especially encouraging by indicating how much work remains to be done. Of the four RBS class I've taken, this has been the best class. The camaraderie of my classmates was also very pleasant. 2: A great course taught by a rare scholar and really delightful man. Interesting and informative in many, many ways. It will improve my own work for years to come. 3: Yes -- Bravo, PN! 4: Spending time with someone like PN is incredibly worthwhile, even if one is not primarily an incunabulist, the more so because (as advertised), he was really talking about how to do bibliography, with c15 books as exempla. 5: The class as a whole was a fun bunch. Part of the wonderment of RBS is meeting interesting people. 6: Yes. Superb class in every way. 7: Definitely -- this course is a must for anyone who deals with early printed books on any level. PN is a patient, witty, generous, and learned teacher who makes a potentially dry subject come completely alive. 8: More -- a priceless experience. 9: Yes Yes Yes. I always do. 10: Yes.

Number of respondents: 10

There were seven rare book librarians (70%), one general librarian with some rare book duties (10%), one teacher or professor (10%), and one book-collector (10%).

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