The course will begin by examining expectations: what constitutes a document of library or museum quality? what fails? The developing doctrine of typographic organization and design calls forth an evaluation of materials, tools, and processes. With the computer's seemingly infinite choice of type faces and visual approaches, how can an institution's materials appear assertive, but not commercial; authoritative, yet not passé? How is the identity of a cultural institution to be achieved? The course dwells less on how to run available software than upon the question, "What should your next printed piece really look like in every detail?" Considerable time will be spent evaluating examples of museum and library printing supplied by students, the instructor, and the BAP collections.

Applicants need to have some experience with the tagging of HTML documents. In their personal statement, applicants should assess the extent of their present knowledge of the electronic environment, and outline a project of their own to which they hope to apply the skills learned in this course.

This course is intended for those who seek a general overview of the technical and cultural aspects of the history of books, printing, and the allied arts and who would like formal classroom exposure to the subject in a well-equipped environment. The instructor emphasizes that this course is aimed at beginners.

Sessions will focus on the first half of the c19. They will cover: the invention of lithography; equipment and materials; some early treatises on the process; pictorial prints; lithographed books, music, and ephemera; the spread of the trade in Europe; and the relationship of lithography to color printing generally. Also included will be discussion of: the graphic characteristics of lithography; the development of the process; pictures and letterforms; some leading figures; and questions associated with identifying, describing, and studying lithographed items.

Each topic will be introduced by an illustrated lecture or less formal talk. In all sessions, however, the aim is to be as interactive as the situation and size of class permits. There will be plenty of time for discussion and, wherever possible, items from the University Library will be made available to provide an opportunity for an element of connoisseurship. It is hoped that a practical demonstration of lithography will be arranged.

The course is aimed primarily at archivists who process and describe collections in finding aids, though it will also be useful to repository administrators contemplating the implementation of EAD Version 1.0, and to technologists working in repositories.

The course will cover the following areas: the history of EAD and its theoretical and technological foundations; an introduction to Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) and Extensible Markup Language (XML), including discussions of authoring and network publishing tools; a detailed exploration of the structure of EAD; use of software tools to create and publish finding aids; discussion of conversion techniques and methodologies, and templates for the creation of new finding aids; and the integration and management of EAD in an archive or library.

The class will jointly encode and publish a finding aid that will illustrate a wide variety of essential EAD and SGML concepts. Students will also encode one of their own finding aids.

Applicants must have a basic knowledge of archival descriptive practices as well as experience using word-processing software with a graphical user interface. Some experience with the World Wide Web and HTML will aid the learning process.

Almost the sole medium of instruction will be actual examples of original prints drawn from the substantial BAP collection, many of them divided into suites or (as they are known locally) packets of twelve prints all from the same (or a very similar) source. The twelve students in the class study the packets under close supervision, using 8X loupes and 30X microscopes (both provided), as necessary.

During the course, students will make and print a linoleum cut, a zinc etching, and an acrylic drypoint. These are exercises in reproductive -- not creative -- work: no artistic ability of any kind whatsoever is either necessary or expected.

The course is aimed at relative beginners. It seeks to provide both independent collectors and dealers, and professional rare book librarians and print curators, with a basic knowledge of the development of the art of the Japanese woodblock print and exposure to the main types of Ukiyo-e that they are likely to encounter in their collecting or work. No knowledge of the Japanese language is required or expected of those attending the course.

It will consist of (1) general and diachronic sessions and (2) work sessions. The first will cover the principles, bibliography, and methodology of codicology, ie the broad analysis and description of Western medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, as well as general information on materials, structures, script and decoration. The second will comprise a broad survey of the physical features of manuscript books in late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Carolingian and post-Carolingian times, the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In the work sessions, students will perform tasks based eg on printed catalogs of manuscripts. The course will be based on a discussion of slides; manuscripts, manuscript fragments, and photocopies; and the specialized literature.

Lectures and discussion will also address such matters as the tailoring of description to various purposes, economizing bibliographical effort by way of the degressive principle, judging the integrity of the artifact, uses and abuses -- all grounded on the principle that the more books you see, the better you know each book. The course will make considerable use of the laboratory collections of the Book Arts Press, with special emphasis on its collection of bibliographies and accompanying examples. It is expected that the course will be useful to (inter alia) scholars engaged in the production of a descriptive bibliography or similar project, collectors and dealers who routinely read or write sophisticated catalogs, and librarians whose duties require the ability to interpret and/or create complex bibliographical descriptions.

Topics include: (1) definition and purpose of rare books and rare book collections -- the determinants of rarity and of value, the appropriateness of rare book collections in libraries, developing criteria for identifying rarities in the general collection, the commitment to security and quality of the collection; (2) collection development -- ascertaining areas of strength and building to them, learning the processes of acquisition (the rare book market and its practices), creating a new field for collecting, building a reference collection to serve the unit, relating collections within the library to each other; (3) technical processing: discussion of catalogs, calendars, and shelflists; describing individual books and collections; relating the rare book collection to the general collection of the library; conservation; readers' and staff facilities; (4) relating the rare book collection to its various clienteles and to the public: special interest groups and their needs, the curator in the classroom, preparation of exhibits, use of the media for publicity, Friends of the Library groups, fund-raising activities, publications; and public relations.