RBS News Feed: 2013
2013 Scholarship Awards Announced
[16 December 2013] Rare Book School is pleased to announce the winners of its 2013 Scholarship Committee awards. Competition was particularly intense this year, so congratulations to all!
Directors' Scholarship Fund:
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Sonia Hazard |
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| Alexandra Bicknell |
Erika Jenns |
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| Benjamin Breen |
Laura Kremmel | |
| Alex Brooks |
Nina Mamikunian |
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| Julie Carlsen |
Cara Schlesinger |
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| Heather Furnas |
Kim Schwenk |
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| Susan Gualtier |
Brynn White |
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| Emily Hagens |
Shannon Wilsey |
ASECS Scholarship: Jordan Howell
Atlas Systems Scholarship: Nicole Dittrich
BSA-RBS Scholarship: Megan Peiser
James Davis Scholarship: Maria Lin
SHARP-RBS Scholarship:
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Jillian Linster |
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| Robb Haberman | Nikolaus Wasmoen |
RBS Director to Deliver Keynote at Library of Congress Authenticity Symposium
[4 December 2013] Rare Book School Director Michael F. Suarez, S.J. will deliver the keynote address at the Authenticity of Print Materials symposium on Friday, 6 December 2013 at the Library of Congress.
Several RBS faculty members will also be participating in the symposium: Mark Dimunation will deliver opening remarks, Tim Barrett will speak on "Authenticity & Authentication of 15th-Century European Papers," and Paul Needham will discuss "Authenticating and Deauthenticating the ML Sidereus Nuncius" alongside current RBS-Mellon fellow Nick Wilding.
See the full symposium schedule for more details.
RBS at the Boston Book Fair
[12 November 2013] If you'll be in Boston this weekend (15–17 November) for the always-delightful Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair, please be sure to stop by the Rare Book School table on Cultural Row. We'll be at Booth 431 (floor plan), with printed copies of our just-released 2014 schedule, some recent RBS posters, a slideshow of images from 2013 RBS classes, and more.
Rare Book School Director Michael F. Suarez, S.J., Assistant Director & Curator of Collections Barbara Heritage, Assistant Curator of Collections Tess Goodman, and Director of Communications & Outreach Jeremy Dibbell will all be at the Fair, at the RBS table and around the show floor. We look forward to seeing many RBS friends in Boston!
The Book: A Global History Published by Oxford University Press
[5 November 2013] New from Oxford University Press, The Book: A Global History is a concise edition of the Oxford Companion to the Book, first published in 2010. This volume includes all fifty-one thematic studies and regional/national book histories from the OCB, as well as three new essays covering censorship, copyright and intellectual property, and book history in the Caribbean and Bermuda.
Like the OCB, The Book: A Global History was co-edited by RBS Director Michael F. Suarez, S.J. and H. R. Woudhuysen, Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford. Rare Book School faculty members James Mosley, David Pearson, and Soren Edgren are among the volume's contributing authors, as is RBS Director of Communications & Outreach Jeremy Dibbell.
The Book: A Global History is now available directly from the publisher or from your favorite book retailer of choice.
RBS Announces 2014 Course Schedule
[22 October 2013] We are very excited to announce the 2014 Rare Book School summer course schedule! Along with 26 courses in Charlottesville, RBS will also offer courses in Philadelphia at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Pennsylvania and the Library Company of Philadelphia, and at the Lillian Goldman Law Library, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Library, and Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University in New Haven.
New courses for 2014 include The Medieval Manuscript in the 21st Century (M-95); The History of the Book in China (H-85); American Publishers' Bookbindings, 1800–1900 (B-75); and an Advanced Seminar in Critical Bibliography (G-70).
RBS Receives Grant for Additional RBS-Mellon Fellowships
[17 October 2013] Rare Book School has been awarded a grant in the amount of $783,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to fund a second cohort of fellows for the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in Critical Bibliography. RBS awarded its first twenty Mellon fellowships in the spring of 2013, and will admit an additional twenty fellows to the program in the spring of 2014. The aim of the program is to reinvigorate bibliographical studies within the humanities by introducing doctoral candidates, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty to specialized skills, methods, and professional networks for conducting advanced research with material texts. Fellows will receive funding and stipends for RBS course attendance, as well as support for research-related travel to special collections. The deadline for application to the program is 2 December 2013. Interested scholars are encouraged to apply as soon as possible. See the RBS-Mellon Fellowship page for more details. Press release.
Registration Open for Global Digital Libraries Symposium
[9 October 2013] Rare Book School, the Scholars' Lab, and the Buckner W. Clay Endowment for the Humanities at the Institute of the Humanities & Global Culture are pleased to announce a three-day symposium, Global Digital Libraries, to be held in Charlottesville from 30 October through 1 November.
Symposium participants include Will Noel, Director of the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, and Director of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and Dot Porter, Curator of Digital Research Services in the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Michael F. Suarez, S.J., Director of Rare Book School, will moderate.
The symposium will include:
- a lunch and round-table discussion moderated by Will Noel and Michael Suarez.
- an evening keynote address by Will Noel, "Global Digital Libraries: Some Principles and an Idea."
- an afternoon workshop led by Will Noel and Dot Porter, "Disbinding All the Books in the World."
See the Global Digital Libraries symposium page for the full schedule, presenter bios, and registration procedures. The lunch discussion and afternoon workshop are limited to 24 participants, and registrations will be processed on a first-come, first-serve basis.
RBS Receives Grant for Additional Scholarships
[25 September 2013] Rare Book School has received a grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation to fund additional Directors' Scholarship awards for the 2013 scholarship cycle. These scholarships are directed toward the continuing education of special collections librarians, and will be awarded to:
- students who wish to pursue a career in special collections librarianship and are currently enrolled in a library or information science program
- individuals who currently work in a library and who wish to pursue a career in special collections librarianship
- individuals who are in the early stages of their careers in special collections librarianship
Beneficiaries of this scholarship will receive full tuition to an RBS course taken during the 2014 calendar year.
To apply, please submit an RBS scholarship application by the 15 October deadline. See the Scholarships page for full details on all RBS scholarships.
Jeremy Dibbell Joins RBS Staff as Director of Communications and Outreach
[20 September 2013] On 1 September, the RBS staff welcomed Jeremy Dibbell as the School's first Director of Communications and Outreach.
Jeremy was awarded a Directors' Scholarship in 2009, and attended RBS in 2010 as the William Reese Fellow. He has worked on the School's summer staff annually since then. In his new position, Jeremy will be focusing on website communications, publicity, advertising, and additional outreach programs for the School. He will also be assisting Program Director Amanda Nelsen with scholarships and other programs-related planning.
Jeremy holds a B.A. in political science from Union College, where he was graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He is a 2008 graduate of the History/Archives Management M.A./M.L.S. program at Simmons College, and comes to Rare Book School from LibraryThing, where he was Librarian for Social Media and Rare Books. Prior to LibraryThing, Jeremy worked as Assistant Reference Librarian at the Massachusetts Historical Society, and while in Boston he also worked for several years at Commonwealth Books. Jeremy writes a regular column on book auctions for Fine Books & Collections, as well as a popular rare books blog, PhiloBiblos.
When not busy at RBS, Jeremy is at work on a history of books and printing in Bermuda, and he oversees the Libraries of Early America project, an effort to aggregate data on personal libraries in America through 1800.
Welcome, Jeremy!
Tess Goodman Appointed RBS Assistant Curator
[20 September 2013] We are pleased to announce that Theresa "Tess" Goodman has received a one-year appointment as Assistant Curator of Collections at Rare Book School. Tess first joined the RBS staff as a part-time collections assistant in 2006, and has worked for the School regularly since then. As our full-time, year-round assistant curator, Tess will have new duties, including the purchase and management of items for RBS's teaching collections. She will also assist with promoting special projects, such as the RBS-UVA Fellowship Program.
Tess was a University of Virginia Echols Scholar, and received her B.A. in English and French, graduating with high distinction in 2012. This spring she completed an M.A. in English, also from UVA. Tess is the curator of the current Rare Book School exhibition, "Books that Take Us Lands Away: Tourism and Print Culture in the Nineteenth Century," on display in the Stettinius Gallery of Alderman Library through February 2014.
Tess has already made a number of substantial contributions to Rare Book School as a part-time staff member, and we all look forward to working with her over the next year as a member of the School's full-time staff.
Now Accepting Applications for RBS 2013 Scholarships
[4 September 2013] Please check the Rare Book School Scholarships page for the newly updated application form for the 2013 scholarship cycle. The application deadline for 2013 is October 15.
RBS Faculty Member Will Noel Receives Award from White House
[28 June 2013] RBS faculty member Will Noel was among 13 scholars and scientists honored at the White House Open Science Champions of Change event on June 20. Director of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies at The University of Pennsylvania, Noel is an advocate for the creation of open data by museums and rare book repositories. He directed the Archimedes Palimpsest Project, an international collaboration to conserve, image and study the erased texts lying beneath a thirteenth-century prayer book. He also pioneered the presentation of machine-readable, openly licensed datasets of digitized illuminated medieval manuscripts at The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.
NEH press release
White House press release
Yale University Acquires Important Collection of Law Books
[20 June 2013] Yale University has recently acquired the law books collection of Anthony Taussig, adding to their already substantive collections in legal history. Michael Widener, who this year taught RBS course C-85: Law Books: History & Connoisseurship onsite at the Lillian Goldman Law Library, was instrumental to the acquisition. For more details, see the article in the New York Times.
RBS Awards $8,250 in Prizes to UVA Students for "Why Books Matter" Competition
[15 April 2013] Rare Book School is pleased to announce the winners of the "Why Books Matter" University-wide competition. The competition, which was sponsored by The Jefferson Trust (an initiative of the UVA Alumni Association), asked UVA students to explore the changing nature of textual media, and to envision new approaches to engaging with books as physical objects. The competition celebrates Rare Book School’s twentieth anniversary on Grounds and is meant to promote research and design related to the book, broadly conceived—that is, any recorded text, including manuscript, printed, and digital media. Its substantial prizes, ranging from $500 to $1,500, recognize UVA’s ongoing commitment to innovative research and design relating to books.
The competition consisted of three divisions, to which students submitted their work: Essay, Fine Arts, and Science, Technology & Entrepreneurship. The following UVA students received awards:
Essay Division
First prize | Anne Rowlenson for "Emily Bronte's Unquiet Graves and the Physicality of Books"
Second prize | Abigail Sindzinski for "What Is the Future of the Book?"
Third prize | Elisabeth Schettle for "A Brief History of a Midwesterner's Reading Habits"
Fine Arts Division
First prize | Victoria Kornick for "Form Noir"
Second prize | Michelle Ross for "How to Build a House"
Third prize | Madeleine Ward for "A Short History of the United States"
Science, Technology & Entrepreneurship Division
First prize | Team 31 for "The Social Reader"
Second prize | Camrynn Genda for "bookSpace"
Third prize | Scott Ellwood for "A 21st-Century Library Designed for a Digital Book Catalogue"
Rare Book School will be hosting an awards ceremony and reception at noon on Friday, April 19 in Alderman 421, and will exhibit these student projects through 5 p.m. on the same day. RBS invites UVA students, faculty, and staff, as well as members from the local community, to attend the event, and to congratulate these students on their accomplishments.
Deadline Extended for Tavistock Books Educational Scholarship
[2 April 2013] The deadline for the Tavistock Books Educational Scholarship has been extended to Monday, 8 April at 5:00 p.m. The scholarship is available to all antiquarian booksellers interested in taking Joel Silver’s course, Reference Sources for Researching Rare Books (L-25), taking place 22–26 July. Preference will be given to individuals in the early stages of their careers and to those who would not otherwise be able to attend RBS without scholarship assistance.
Now Accepting Applications for October Courses
[26 March 2013] The applications for our two October courses in Washington, D.C., are now available on the myRBS application system. Both are new courses taught by veteran RBS faculty. Advanced Rare Book Cataloging (L-35), taught by Deborah J. Leslie, will be held at the Folger Shakespeare Library; Hokusai & Book Illustration (I-95), taught by Ellis Tinios, will be held at the Freer/Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution.
RBS Faculty Member Joel Silver Appointed Director of Indiana University's Lilly Library
[20 March 2013] Dean of Indiana University Libraries Brenda Johnson recently announced the appointment of Joel Silver as Director of the Lilly Library, the university's celebrated rare books and manuscripts library. Silver was previously Associate Director and Curator of Books at the Lilly. He began teaching at RBS in the summer of 2012 with his course Reference Sources for Researching Rare Books (L-25), which will be offered again this summer in late July. Read the full IU News Room article here.
RBS Assistant Director Barbara Heritage Wins Charlottesville "4 Under 40" Award
[15 March 2013] Rare Book School Assistant Director & Curator of Collections Barbara Heritage was recently selected to receive one of Charlottesville Woman's "4 Under 40" awards, an annual prize given by the Charlottesville Daily Progress, honoring local women who make an impact on the community by balancing work, family, and activism. Read more in the CW article (PDF).
RBS-Mellon Fellowships Awarded
[8 March 2013] RBS is pleased to announce that the selection process for the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in Critical Bibliography is now complete: 20 RBS-Mellon Fellows have been chosen from a pool of 250 applicants. The aim of the fellowship program is to reinvigorate bibliographical studies within the humanities by introducing doctoral candidates, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty to specialized skills, methods, and professional networks for conducting advanced research with material texts. View press release
Still Accepting Applications for Tavistock Books Educational Scholarship
[5 March 2013] The Tavistock Books Educational Scholarship is a full-tuition scholarship opportunity that is available to all antiquarian booksellers interested in taking Joel Silver’s course, Reference Sources for Researching Rare Books (L-25), at RBS in Charlottesville, Virginia. One Tavistock Scholarship will be awarded in 2013. Preference will be given to individuals in the early stages of their careers and to those who would not otherwise be able to attend RBS without scholarship assistance.
To apply for the Tavistock scholarship, please submit a 2013 summer application to RBS no later than 1 April 2013. In a cover letter, discuss your reasons for applying for the scholarship to attend "Reference Sources for Researching Rare Books"; please include a brief description of your work in the antiquarian book trade, financial needs, and other relevant information. While not required, a recommendation letter from an ABAA member to accompany the application would be beneficial. Scholarship applicants will be notified of decisions by 30 April 2013.
RBS Now Accepting Submissions for "Why Books Matter" Competition
[31 January 2013] “Why Books Matter” is a University-wide competition open to all UVA students who wish to explore the changing nature of textual media, and who envision new approaches to engaging with books as physical objects. The competition celebrates Rare Book School’s twentieth anniversary on Grounds, and is meant to promote research and design related to the book, broadly conceived—that is, any recorded text, including manuscript, printed, and digital media. Its substantial prizes—ranging from $500 to $1,500—are meant to recognize UVA’s ongoing commitment to innovative research and design relating to books.
Students may submit projects in one of three categories: Essays; Fine Arts; and Science, Technology & Entrepreneurship. The deadline for submissions has been extended to 15 March 2013. The submission form, along with competition details, is now available on our "Why Books Matter" page.
Exhibition Tours for "Turning the Page: Technology & Innovation in Nineteenth-Century Books"
[30 January 2013] RBS is pleased to announce the gallery tours of the exhibition "Turning the Page: Technology & Innovation in c19 Books," from 10 to 11 a.m. on Wednesday, January 30, February 13, and February 27. Gallery tours will last approximately 15 to 20 minutes and are open to the public.
"Turning the Page" is an exhibition that explores the relationship between new technologies and the rise of modern mass media in the nineteenth century. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, books were still manufactured using many of the same craft skills and techniques used since the introduction of moveable type in the fifteenth century. By the end of the 1800s, the book had changed from a largely handmade object to a mass-produced industrial product. This exhibition showcases the technological innovations that helped to transform book manufacture. Highlighted in each case are advances in papermaking, printing, binding, and illustration processes, all of which contributed to a century-long quest to make books more quickly, more cheaply, and in greater numbers than ever before.
This exhibition has been made possible by Rare Book School and The Jefferson Trust, an initiative of the UVA Alumni Association, as part of the “Why Books Matter” Exhibition Series, celebrating Rare Book School’s twentieth anniversary on Grounds.
For more information about the exhibition, please contact the exhibition's curator, Elizabeth Ott, at elo2be@virginia.edu.
RBS Launches Its New Online Application System
[22 January 2013] RBS is pleased to announce myRBS, a new customized web application developed for every member of the RBS community. Through myRBS, you will be able to apply for a course, gain access to and edit your contact information, view your course history and Friend status, and more!
With this launch of myRBS, Rare Book School is now accepting summer course applications. To apply for a course, you will need to create a new myRBS account.
If you have applied for or taken an RBS course in the past, applied for a scholarship, or donated to RBS, please indicate this on the registration page so that we can link your new myRBS account to existing records.
More details can be found on our Application & Admissions page.