Michael Suarez
H-90: Teaching the History of the Book
19-23 July 2010
1) How useful were the pre-course readings? (Leave blank if you applied and were accepted late for the course, and thus did not get the list in time.)
1: I was accepted late but had started the readings, and read them a second time in the last two weeks. They were very helpful even though we did not discuss them directly in class. 2: Extremely useful, relevant, and well-chosen. Like every aspect of the course, great care was clearly taken. 3: The ones that focused on teaching were especially useful; the others were good but required a knowledge base that was at a higher level of bibliographic and book history theory and experience that I had. 4: The pre-course readings were extremely helpful and a good balance. Hawkins had some great practical ideas. The other two texts introduced me to a whole new way of thinking about the topic and bibliography post-new criticism. 5: The readings were most helpful—a bit daunting in a short time to prepare, but glad to have had them under my belt. 6: I thought they were relevant and well chosen, and the amount of required reading was not excessive. 7: It was useful bibliography. 8: Very useful. It would have been great also to have the 1500(!)-page readings available beforehand. 9: It's the nature of this course that we can't spend time talking about specific readings and arguments, but I read every single thing on the reading list, long as it was, and found that to be a very helpful refresher as well as an introduction to history of the book pedagogy. 10: The readings were judiciously selected, and each presented thought provoking content in elegantly brief format. The reading's typified MFS's advice that a good teacher should always "prelect" the material that students will encounter for the subsequent class meeting. 12: They were well-chosen—substantial but not overwhelming. 13: The pre-course readings seemed just about the right length and provided a very helpful framework on teaching book history that served as a springboard for the class. 14: They were moderately useful—we didn't "cover" them, and I was familiar with the issues, but they did encourage me to systematically about the issues before the week started. 15: Useful as background. 16: Useful for background and for aspects of the field that were unfamiliar.
2) Were the course syllabus and other materials distributed in class appropriate and useful (or will they be so in the future, after you return home)?
1: They will be extremely useful, more so because I entered the course with less experience than most participants. 2: The 1,500-page book is a treasure. THANK YOU for the extraordinary effort in compiling this. However, my learning would have been abetted by even a skeletal syllabus/outline for each day. 3: I didn't notice a syllabus, but the thumb drive of resources was invaluable. 4: No syllabus. 1,500-page thumb drive. In other instances this might not work, but MFS's style and organization lent itself to a course without a syllabus. 5: The syllabus is a Gold Mine! I can't wait to dig in. 6: Absolutely wonderful selection of resources, in very generous quantity. I will refer to this often, and perhaps add to it. 7: There was no formal syllabus but an amazingly detailed, digitized collection of sources that will be invaluable—I'm sure—for years to come. 8: The huge collection of readings would be worth the cost of admission all by itself. I'll be returning to them both for teaching and also my own research. 9: I've had courses here that have very, very strictly obeyed syllabi, but, since I've taken a course on history of the book teaching, I feel I can say very authoritatively that such a detailed, step-by-step syllabus would not have worked here. 10: The syllabi and the magisterial notebook were a great gift whose pithy advice, worksheets, and readings will be useful for years to come. 11: Incredibly useful. The 1,500-page packet will be a regular resource for my teaching in the future. 12: The main document of organization—in lieu of a syllabus—was the 1,500-page flash drive that could have been overwhelming but was (a) very well organized and (b) utilized throughout the course so that we became increasingly familiar with it. A superb means of navigating so much diverse and extensive material. 13: Yes, and having them in PDF was a much better way of working with them for this course than having them in print. They'll be a useful reference tool back home. 14: Yes—the 1,500-page, one gigabyte "workbook" will be quite helpful. 15: They will be very useful, although they will require a lot of picking through. 16: At hundreds of PDF pages, I sure hope so.
3) What aspects of the course content were of the greatest interest or relevance for your purposes? Was the intellectual level of the course appropriate?
1: I expected participants would be textual editors, and a few were, but the variability and instability of texts seemed an important justification of why to pay attention to complications regarding authorial intention. 2: The pedagogical focus. Instructor did a wonderful job pitching to a wide array of interests and expertise. Even those who came in knowing a lot about book history learned a lot. 3: Activities related to engaging students in using Special Collections materials; building your own teaching collection ... 4: This course—dare I say—is going to change the playing field for me. I think the second sentence out of MFS's mouth quoted Gadamer. It was intellectually challenging and that was perfect. This balance with Praxis was great. 5: The intellectual level challenged and stretched us. A high bar was set—all expanded their talents to reach it together—I think we succeeded. 6: I was interested to learn about the approach of others, both in the class and through syllabi. Of course MFS's personal experience is of especially significant value. 7: The class was very intellectual and effective in how it engaged so many students with disparate backgrounds and professional interests. It was a kind of week-long intensive seminar or colloquium that was always engaging and directed by MFS's unflagging enthusiasm and impressive erudition. 8: Discussions of physical aspects of books and specific exercises for classes. 9: The analysis of sample syllabi was very effective. 10: The extensive attention to the question, "How does this book make its meaning?" The intellectual level of this course was ideal and constantly thought provoking and stimulating. 11: There was tremendous variety to the sessions while regularly anchored in pedagogical issues. MFS's range is astounding and he made all corners of book studies relevant. 12: Intellectual level entirely appropriate and capacious. 13: Pedagogical discussions, ideas about assignments, strategies for the variety of ways this topic can successfully be framed and approached in teaching. 14: The intellectual level was appropriate, and the aspect with the greatest relevance were the hands-on activities. 15: Intellectual level was appropriate. Course discussion was very useful. 16: Getting exposure to aspects of book history that I have little background in, like textual criticism.
4) What did you like best about the course?
1: Reading suggestions. How to engage students though a multi-stage process. Deliberation and collaboration as a rare books librarian with faculty. 2: The instructor. MFS's energy, good humor, stunning expertise, patience, range, fabulous attitude ... pretty dazzling. 3: See above. Also, the extraordinary knowledge of the instructor was very impressive. He knows the subject, especially as it relates from the 15C and 18C, inside and out. 4: I loved the stimulating engagement between the participants. New knowledge, bouncing ideas off of one another. Different disciplines. 5: 1) The Generosity and Capaciousness of the Professor. 2) The Generosity and Capaciousness of my colleagues. 6: The seminar-like exchange by participants. 7: MFS's leadership—his direction of the course. It was open and often tangential in its proceedings but nevertheless always relevant and engaging. We covered a tremendous amount of material. His modeling of in-class exercises was especially helpful. 8: This course was, to use MFS's favorite word of praise, "capacious." MFS is enormously giving of his enthusiasm and knowledge. I came in hoping to strengthen a pre-existing course that I teach, which as a result of this class will be much more thorough. 9: I like that it was, among other things, a little review for me—the most "meta" of RBS classes, it's true, but also refreshed the nitty gritty of both pedagogy and the difficult elements of text editing, descriptive bibliography, and book history, &c. 10: The wonderful balance between MFS's comments and questions and those of the participants. The keen attention to form and content, to form and function, and to the relevance of production and business practices to the content, the function, and the poetics of the book made this course relevant to any student of the humanities. 11: MFS's energy and knowledge is unparalleled. Especially remarkable is that a scholar with his command and research profile is truly committed to undergraduate (and graduate) teaching. 12: Range of material and instructor's amazing sense of recall of a lifetime of reading—the flash drive alone was more than worth the time and tuition; plus the navigation through it was impressive. 13: MFS's willingness to share his vast teaching experiences and his genuine openness to the perspectives of class participants. The seminar approach in this course worked extremely well from my perspective. 14: The time to immerse myself in this subject for five days and be surrounded by people who genuinely wanted to share ideas, experience, and advice. 15: The instructor. 16: MFS's enthusiasm and knowledge.5) Did the instructor(s) successfully help you to acquire the information and skills that the course was intended to convey?
1: Yes, particularly to acquire information. Traditional skills of RBS-type were given support and looking directly at books, handling them, was practiced. Course members in many cases suggested hands-on experiences as useful pedagogy. Limits in time. 2: Overwhelmingly, yes. I will be an infinitely better teacher of this material, and a better scholar of the material too. 3: He gave countless texts and activities to help in teaching the history of the book, especially to those who will be teaching it as a semester credit course. I took what I needed to fit the purposes as related to my position as a Special Collections librarian. I also got to see how a professor would approach the class—helpful in collaborating with them. 4: MFS gave us a good jumping off point to explore this field further. He gave us much more information than I would ever had imagined possible. 5: Indeed! His willingness to respond to our questions and to change direction according to our needs is most appreciated. 6: This is one of those "Lead a horse to water ... " moments. MFS can show us where to find a lot of water in a week, but it's up to me (us) to decide. Even so, a lot got through. 7: There are two levels of skills here—knowledge and competence in bibliography and pedagogical approaches/ideas to teaching it. There wasn't time of course to cover both. The pedagogy was great, though I'm left with the feeling that I must brush up on my own knowledge of bibliography—which I now feel more confident in doing. 8: Yes. 9: Yes!! The course flash drive will be tremendously useful. Note: I took this course because I knew that it would be an example of amazing, truly world class pedagogy. The readings and discussion was helpful from a theoretical point of view, but MFS enacted truly amazing teaching. Best teacher I have ever seen in my life! 10: Yes, absolutely. 11: There was a wonderful mirroring of MFS's teaching style and what we and our students can do in the classroom. As we discussed technique, we practiced it also. 12: Yes. 13: Yes, beyond my expectations. The ideas for framing this topic that were exchanged during the course of the week will be helpful in many, many ways. 14: Absolutely. 15: Yes. 16: I think so, but I think I'll know better when I teach my course.
6) Did you learn what the course description/advertisements indicated you would learn?
1: Yes. MFS and class members suggested useful strategies. 2: Yes. That and much more. 3: Yes. Adding the level of pre-knowledge of the subject would have helped. 4: Yes. 5: Yes. And much more. 6: Yes. I imagined we might dwell more on theory, but it's probable that book history is mostly praxis. 7: Yes. Again this course managed to impart knowledge of bibliography in addition to pedagogical method. 8-16: Yes.
7) Did you learn what you wanted to learn in the course?
1: Yes. The extent to which editors and publishers engage in choices was stressed. I think it would be useful to extend this to ways in which this implies ways we need to be interpretive. 2: Absolutely, yes. 3-4: Yes. 5: Yes. And hope to effectively incorporate the idea and methods into my particular needs at my home campus. 6: Yes. This course was some "gas in the tank." Will have to learn a lot from doing. 7: Yes. 8-11: Yes. 12: Yes. And it was presented in such a fashion as to facilitate on-going learning well into the future. 13-16: Yes.
8) How do you intend to use or apply the knowledge or skills learned in this course?
I hope to set up a rare books one-time, repeatable presentation, to do one-time presentations that relate to specific academic topics in the humanities. With additional reading and experience I would like to teach a rare book course. I think to do this collaboratively would be productive. 2: I'll be teaching an undergraduate survey as well as, I hope, a more focused course in my field. I am also in the process of helping to build a possible book studies program at my institution. 3: I plan to use it in collaboration with faculty who bring their classes to Special Collections. 4: I am going to go home and read a butt-load of books on the topic and continue to be in conversation with MFS and my classmates. I'll be teaching a course on this in a year. 5: 1) To examine my rare book collection and prepare a guide to it in light of book history concepts. 2) To use the guide to encourage faculty to use the collection actively. 3) To prepare exhibits with an [illegible] agenda in mind. 6: Cooperate with others in course development and library acquisitions. 7: I intend to teach a book history course and increase my own knowledge of the topic. 8: Primarily I will use it to strengthen my own class. But as well, this week gave me a valuable review of book history. 9: To integrate history of the book into undergraduate surveys and period-specific graduate literature seminars. 10: Toward a more nuanced approach to teaching the history of the book for undergraduates of liberal arts. 11: Immediate application in revamping my courses. 12: In one specific course and scattered throughout other courses. It will enhance research but I will use it primarily in teaching. 13: Mainly helping faculty to think about strategies for integrating the rare book collection into their teaching, and helping to insert some aspect of materiality into my work with classes around the book collections. 14: I am already starting to draw up a syllabus reflecting what I learned. 15: Revising both my syllabus and my attitude. 16: By teaching the course and incorporating a variety of class suggestions and strategies.9) How could the course have been improved? If you have a suggestion for a new course (and—equally important—a person who could teach it), please contact the RBS Program Director.
1: I am particularly interested in cultural, social, political and economic contexts that affect books as their history (authors and texts especially). The stress on the book as an object was pursued very meaningfully. More on [this] as a body of thought and argument would be wonderful. 2: The staggering amount of material is wonderful, but more time spent organizing, sign-posting, structuring—even in broad terms—would have helped. My notes are rather dizzying. 3: I would have benefitted from introductions of my classmates and a syllabus early on (first day). I think this approach would have made the class environment more centered on the whole class instead of the instructor. Also, perhaps a description of the level of expertise with c17 and c18 British culture was needed for a greater understanding of the class content—maybe a pre-requisite would help. 4: This is difficult and perhaps unfair—given the folks who signed up for this course—but I think it would have been interesting to get people from other disciplines involved. 5: 1) The exercises and demonstrating best practices were most helpful. 2) Daily mixing such demos, formal review, and discussion of bibliographical sources would set up a rhythm that would be successfully assimilated. 6: A class participant list separate from the Vade Mecum, some initial discussion about the arc of progress for the week or general goals. I like to think structure and flexibility can coexist. 8: The collection of readings and syllabi could be distributed in advance. 9: I'm being honest when I say I can't imagine how it could be better seriously. I'm not kidding. For real. 10: Perhaps a bit more discussion of a semiotic approach to the poetics and analysis of word and image—for individuals who deal with the aspects beyond text—but overall, the course was fantastic. 12: No suggestions for improvement—an excellent course as is. Suggestion for new course: Textual Editing—Digital World. 13: I thought it worked quite well the way it was presented this year. 14: Although his vast and broad expertise was the best part of the class, MFS has a bit of a tendency to "riff" to such an extent that it goes from being a directed course on "how to teach book history" to a "fascinating ideas, people, and issues in Book History" course. I might prefer a tad bit more structure. 16: Needs more time, but one could say that for all RBS courses.
10) If your course left its classroom to visit Special Collections (SC) or to make other field trips away from your classroom, was the time devoted to this purpose well spent?
At times even very moving. Hearing the reactions of fellow class members felt like being on a field experience with them. Very effective. 2: Sure. Looking at these books is always delightful. But was really mattered is how the instructor turned everything into a pedagogical opportunity. He modeled brilliantly: we learned not just about the specific books but how to think with books. 3: Yes. 4: Absolutely. This was a real opportunity to practice and engage with the text in ways we had talked about in class. It wasn't a dog and pony show. 5: Definitely. The hours sped by, and we were always left wishing for more. 6: It obviously was for some more than others. 7: Yes, it was very useful to model exercises there for our own students. 8: Yes—books were well chosen and discussion was focused. 9: Very well spent—the most lively Special Collections trips I've ever had. 10: Absolutely. 11: Brilliantly so. The artifacts taught us, while MFS guided students—and students contributed as well. 12: Yes, very much so. 13: Yes, getting to discuss and think about how to present the stuff in Special Collections was worthwhile. 14-16: Yes.11) 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: I didn't perceive
any problem. Great care was taken. 2: Everything was handled with care. I would discourage drinks in the classroom
while using RBS teaching collections. 4: It would have been good to have cleaned off the tables after the fire-damaged
books had been used. The debris from these books attached to mylar on, for
instance, the
12) If you attended the optional evening events (e.g. RBS Lecture, Video Night, RBS Forum, Booksellers' Night) were they worth attending?
1: RBS Forum was more a presentation than a forum, but I liked it. I liked the question and answer period of the lecture—opened up many things to consider. Found good purchases on Booksellers' Night. 2: Everything was worth attending. 4: Absolutely. Lectures were great and I made a number of new friends who I hope to stay in touch with. 5: Certainly. I attended all events and found them enjoyable and convivial—especially video night. (The others were more "formal"). 6: Yes, speakers are generally of high quality. 7: N/A. 8: Yes. 9: They were, but at a certain point you have to begin attending with rest. 10: Yes. 11: N/A. 12: Yes. 13: Yes, both lectures were worth attending. 14: Yes—I attended the lecture and the forum, and felt both were quite worthwhile. 15: Yes. 16: Yes, very good lectures.
13) Did you get your (or your institution's) money's worth? Any final or summary thoughts, or advice for other persons considering taking this course in a future year?
1: I particularly want to thank the staff. MFS was very generous with his energies and knowledge and interaction with the class. 2: Every penny and then some. I have dreaded the end of this course. Thank You. 3: Yes. 4: Absolutely—I would say be prepared to work hard and be challenged intellectually. Soak up as much as you can. This is a very rare opportunity. 5: Yes. I would recommend getting as early a start on the pre-readings as possible. Perhaps a quick reviews of the readings, and why chosen, at the beginning of class would help. 6: RBS is good value—especially adding in the take-away resources and contacts made. 7: Yes. 8: Absolutely. The make up of the class—roughly half librarians and half teaching faculty—worked very well. 9: Certainly got the money's worth. 10: Yes, and that is an understatement—I have come away filled with ideas and inspiration, and most especially, a new way of seeing. 11: This is an essential course for anyone interested in teaching book history. It makes a huge contribution to the field. The range of ideas and methods, the attention to description and interpretation, the awareness of what future students will need—all excellent and necessary. 12: Definitely. 13: Yes. 14: Yes—I am going to proselytize for RBS among my colleagues and students, and I hope to return. 15: Yes!!! 16: Yes.
Number of respondents: 16
PERCENTAGES
Leave
Institution gave me leave
56%
I took vacation time
6%
N/A: self-employed, retired or had the summers off
38%
Tuition
Institution paid tuition
81%
I paid tuition myself
13%
N/A: Self-employed, retired or scholarship
6%
Housing
Institution paid housing
63%
I paid for my own housing
13%
N/A: stayed with friends or lived at home
25%
Travel
Institution paid travel
69%
I paid my own travel
25%
N/A: lived nearby
6%
There were four rare book librarians (25%), seven teachers and professors of English literature) (44%), one teacher of art history (6%), two archivists/manuscript librarians (13%), one general librarian with some rare book duties (6%), and one Special Collections librarian (6%).