RBS 2003 Course Evaluation: Introduction to the History of Typography

1: Very helpful. 2: Very useful – but some texts (such as Alexander Lawson, Anatomy of a Typeface) would have been very helpful to have during the week. There were RBS copies, but some class-members had their own copies – they felt it was really helpful. Perhaps star reading list items to bring along? 3: The readings I happened to choose (the list was long) were very helpful. 4: They were very useful, but it was extremely difficult to read everything very thoroughly. Perhaps it would be better to have a smaller number to read beforehand, with a longer list for future reference. Core texts with directions for future interest. 5: Very helpful, and should have been studied more thoroughly by me. 6: Ok. 7: They were all useful, but overwhelming in number. 8: They were well chosen, but it would have been more helpful to designate key readings, e.g. Lawson. 9: They were useful, but there were so many. 10: They were somewhat helpful.

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, though they could have been worked into the course in a more organized fashion. 2: Workbook was very helpful. To improve it further I would 1) label all the illustrations, text-face samples, &c. 2) make pagination easier to read and to use. 3) add a section on bibliography for further reading. 3- 4: Yes. 5: They were both appropriate and useful. 6: Could have been better organized. 7: Yes, useful now and in the future. 8: The booklet was obviously a rush job. Pages were missing, mis-numbered. Reproduction of some material was flawed and not very helpful. 9-10: Yes.

1: Yes. 2: Yes, fine. Demanding, and that’s what I expected. 3-9: Yes. 10: Yes, but there was too much jammed into one week.

1: Yes. 2: Excellent visit to the Special Collections department (and the one session where there wasn’t a feeling of constant rushing). It’s easier to “see” the different faces from real objects, and I would have another session like this -- earlier in the week (or use more examples from the packets). 3: Yes. 4: Very well spent -- it would have been good to have had more time spent this way. 5: Very well spent. 6: Ok. 7: Extremely. 8: Yes. 9: Mostly yes. 10: N/A.

1: I liked the hands-on activities. The opportunity to make type and work a press was fantastic. 2: Hands-on work was excellent -- well-taught, plenty of time to get a feel for things. 3: A real strength was SN’s knowledge of the practical considerations of type founding, punch cutting, and printing. I enjoyed the hands-on experience we had. 4: The practical elements were most helpful -- the one thing I couldn’t really understand through reading. 5: It opened new vistas in book appreciation. 6: Lab time. SN is a marvelous printer, type cutter, type setter. Did a remarkable job in this area. Very worthwhile! 7: Enjoyed all of it. 8: The hands-on components: setting type, casting type, were excellent. 9: The way SN conveyed both his knowledge and enthusiasm for the course. 10: I learned a lot of facts that I can use while dressed in silly clothes in my c18 style print shop.

1: The course could have been organized better, particularly the morning lecture periods. 2: A bit more structure in teaching type-face history and recognition would be helpful. (Perhaps they are two distinct but related areas.) It would be great to take the final “test” in the morning and have some time in the afternoon to look at the examples with the answers in hand individually before discussing as a group -- would have learned more. 3: There really seemed to be too much material to cover in one week -- some parts of the historical material seemed rushed and not as organized as it might have been, but then it was the first time SN had taught it. Perhaps it could be divided somehow into several courses, to allow more depth of coverage. 4: I had very little experience / knowledge of the history and development of typography, and would have liked to concentrate more on the time line, and to follow the different styles and influences in chronological order. 5: Some sort of general classification of typefaces could have been helpful, and, if possible, a key to identification, as is commonly used in taxonomy. 6: Academic part needs overhaul. Too informal, not enough organization. Material presented in a haphazard format, not conducive to learning. 7: More focused and organized. More time spent on typography rather than on setting type and printing. Discuss fewer typefaces, in greater detail. 8: The presentation of the history of typography was very scattered. It was difficult to follow and confusing. 9: More time spent in class covering the periods. 10: The scope needed to be narrowed a lot.

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?

2: Seemed to work ok. 4: We didn’t remove original materials from their perspex cases, but it might be useful to have cotton gloves to aid closer inspection. (I use gloves at work for particularly sensitive items.) [It's widely agreed that gloves do more damage than they prevent, except when handling photographs. -Ed.] 5: The materials seemed to be handled very appropriately. 6: None. Staff overly protective at times. 7: None. All handled carefully. 8: N/A. 10: N/A.

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

2: Yes -- the social aspect of RBS is an important part of the whole experience. 3-5: Yes. 6: Monday was quite interesting even though it was read. Slides excellent. 7: Yes. 8: Yes. It is particularly useful to hear from TB on the status of RBS. 9: Yes. 10: N/A.

1: Yes, very educational. 2-3: Yes. 4: I particularly appreciated the opportunity to see the Audubon prints on Thursday. 5: Yes. 6: Yes -- excellent, worthwhile exhibits. Much better than audio-visual. 7-8: Yes. 9: Yes. I especially enjoyed the Thursday night museum on printing surfaces. 10: N/A.

1: Yes, I did. I look forward to returning. 2: Yes. Bring a copy of Lawson or Geoffrey Dowding’s The History of Printing Types. 3: Yes. The quality of the staff and the wealth of materials available for study are amazing. 4: Yes. Felt I needed more study time -- could this be incorporated into the Museum nights (rather than in down time)? Perhaps when the new building is in operation, the extra space will be available. 5: Yes. Advice to future students: study the suggested reading, especially Lawson’s Anatomy of a Typeface. 6: Any time spent in this environment is a joy and worth the price of admission, whether the instruction is good or bad. I have experienced both. The best classes were James Mosley and TB’s print evaluation. SN’s course would benefit from tighter material presentation, better organization, and a logical scheme with fewer asides and digressions. 7: Money’s worth, yes. Advice: If course is constructed in same manner, should be aware that half of course is devoted to printing, not history of typography. 8: Yes. I think the course will improve from this fine beginning. 9-10: Yes.

Leave	Tuition	Housing	Travel
Institution gave me leave	Institution paid tuition	Institution paid housing	Institution paid travel
40%	50%	50%	40%
I took vaca- tion time	I paid tui- tion myself	I paid for my own housing	I paid my own travel
20%	30%	40%	60%
N/A: self-employed, retired, or had summers off	N/A: self-employed, retired, or exchange	N/A: stayed with friends or lived at home	N/A: lived nearby
40%	20%	10%	0%

There were three rare book librarians (30%), one archivist or manuscript librarian (10%), two general librarians with some rare book duties (20%), one full-time student (10%), one antiquarian bookseller (10%), one book-collector (10%), and one park ranger who works in a historic printing shop (10%).