Related Institutes around the World
Institutes related to the Rare Book School can currently be found in the following countries:UNITED STATES
[ Top ]Los Angeles, California
The California Rare Book School (CALRBS) is a continuing education program dedicated to providing the knowledge and skills required by professionals working in all aspects of the rare book community and for students interested in entering the field. CALRBS offers weeklong courses covering a broad range of topics.
Students at the California Rare Book School benefit from expert faculty and the wealth of special collections of rare books, manuscripts and archival materials in the Los Angeles area. The CALRBS schedule is available from the CALRBS website.
College Station, Texas
Since 2001, Professor Steven Escar Smith (Director, Cushing Library and Archives, Texas A&M University) has directed an annual Texas A&M Workshop in the History of Books and Printing. The five-day workshop is intended for librarians, archivists, students, teachers, collectors, and private individuals who have an interest in the first three and a half centuries of the printed book. The course consists of a unique combination of labs and seminars designed to provide students with practical experience as well as a broad historical survey of the field. The labs, centered around Cushing's period-accurate common press, will allow students to experience bookmaking in the hand press era, with sessions devoted to printing, typesetting, papermaking, typecasting, and bookbinding.
For further information, consult the Book History at Texas A&M workshop website.
Urbana-Champaign, Illinois
In 2007, the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign partnered with the IU Rare Book & MSS Library, to form the Midwest Book & Manuscript Studies Program (MBMS). The MBMS offers a series of courses and workshops focused on special collections and the book arts. The program offers both two-week summer classes that can be taken credit/no-credit, and traditional semester-long credit courses. A wide variety of subjects are covered, including rare book & special collections librarianship, archives, and the history of papermaking, printing, and manuscripts. The MBMS also offers a Certificate in Special Collections, a 12-credit-hour graduate certificate open to library and information science professionals and students who want to develop expertise in special collections librarianship and to other professionals interested in developing or enhancing their knowledge of special collections.
For further information, see the Midwest Book & Manuscript Studies Program website.
Colorado Springs, Colorado
The Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar is held annually at Colorado College, Colorado Springs. “Specialists share their expertise and experience with booksellers, librarians, and collectors in this comprehensive survey of the out-of-print, antiquarian, rare and used book markets. Basic procedures and problems are discussed both formally and informally through a series of lectures, demonstrations, discussions and practical workshops.”
For further information, consult the Book Seminar’s website.
FRANCE
[ Top ]École de Institut d'histoire du livre | Book History Workshop
The Book History Workshop (BHW) was inaugurated in 2001 in Lyon under the auspices of the Institut d'histoire du livre. The BHW offers courses in both English and French at the Ecole Normale Supérieure - Lettres et Sciences Humaines (Lyon), with sessions at the Lyon Printing Museum and the rare book collection of the City Library.
For further information, consult the Institut’s website.
ITALY
[ Top ]Montefiascone Project
Montefiascone is a medieval walled Italian city located about half way between Rome and Siena. Each summer, conservators, archivists, art historians, librarians and others interested in the history and the structure of the book meet to participate in courses which are held within the city walls.
For further information, consult the Montefiascone Project website.
UNITED KINGDOM
[ Top ]Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies
In 2001, a Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies was created at the University of London by merger of the Centre for Palaeography and the Research Centre in the History of the Book. The Institute of English Studies (part of London University's School of Advanced Study) hosts the Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies for a partnership including the British Library, St Bride Printing Library, the University of London Library, the English Departments of the Universities of Birmingham and Reading, and the Open University. Since 2004, the new Centre's London International Paleography Summer School has has offered a variety of related one-day courses on medieval manuscripts and related subjects.
Beginning in July 2007, London Rare Books School (LRBS) has offered a series of five-day, intensive courses on a variety of book-related subjects. Courses are taught by internationally-known scholars, using the library and museum resources of London, including the British Library, the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Senate House Library.
Further details can be found at the London Rare Books School website.
Ligatus Summer School
Ligatus is a research centre of the University of the Arts London with particular interest in the history of bookbinding, book conservation, archiving and the application of digital technology to the exploration and exploitation of these fields. Ligatus’s main research projects currently include the conservation of the books in the library of St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai and the development of a multi-lingual thesaurus of bookbinding terms.
Ligatus Summer School sessions were held originally in Volos and Patmos, Greece; in 2009 at Thessaloniki, Greece; in 2010 at Wolfenbüttel, Germany; in 2011 at Venice, Italy; in 2012 at Paris, France; and in 2013 at Uppsala, Sweden.
AUSTRALASIA
[ Top ]Australian and New Zealand Rare Books Summer School
The Australian and New Zealand Rare Books Summer School offers summer sessions in a four-year cycle in Dunedin, Melbourne, and Wellington. See the 2013 brochure for more information.