Rare Book School (RBS) is a global community advancing the study of the book and the historical record through rigorous, hands-on learning opportunities.
Purpose and Commitments of RBS
RBS provides continuing-education opportunities for students from all disciplines and skill levels to study the history, care, and use of written, printed, and digital materials with leading scholars and professionals in the field.
At RBS, an international faculty of distinguished researchers and practitioners guides a hands-on, intensive examination and analysis of textual artifacts in seminar-style classes. Through this method, RBS fosters the knowledge and expertise essential to the responsible stewardship of the historical record in all its richness and many forms.
Promoting a spirit of learning and intellectual generosity, our School builds and strengthens relationships among individuals with diverse bibliographical interests from around the globe to create a community equipped to advance historically informed understandings of our cultural heritage. Some of our courses are broadly directed toward antiquarian booksellers, book collectors, bookbinders, conservators, teachers, students, and bibliophiles. Others are primarily intended for archivists, research and rare book librarians, and curators. All who would like to advance their bibliographical knowledge are welcome to apply.
History
A tax-exempt non-profit organization founded in 1983, Rare Book School (RBS) has been governed by an independent board of directors in partnership with the University of Virginia since 1992.
Founded at the Columbia University School of Library Service in 1983 by Terry Belanger, RBS had humble beginnings as a small collection of courses on bookish and bibliographical subjects, offered through Belanger’s bibliographical laboratory, the Book Arts Press. In 1992, RBS moved its headquarters to the lower level of Alderman Library at the University of Virginia (UVA). Belanger retired as Director of RBS at the end of August 2009, and his successor, Michael F. Suarez, S.J., was chosen to lead the School as Executive Director.
Suarez’s time at RBS has been defined by expanding course locations to more than 40 partner organizations across the country and globe and by spearheading the successful $23 million “Bound for the Future” endowment campaign to sustain the School, which concluded in 2023. Near that campaign’s end, UVA completed a $170 million renovation of Alderman Library, renamed the Edgar Shannon Library, and RBS headquarters moved to the second floor of Shannon, where the School remains today.
RBS is committed to offering courses where students access the best books and instruction available from its world-class faculty. In 2021, in response to the global coronavirus pandemic, RBS offered formal online courses alongside its more traditional in-person ones, in alignment with the School’s educational mission. RBS began drawing students from Colombia, Pakistan, India, New Zealand, China, and beyond.
Over its history, RBS has forged partnerships with:
- The Grolier Club of New York
- The Morgan Library & Museum
- The Folger Shakespeare Library
- Yale University (Beinecke, Sterling, and Law Libraries; Heritage Science Research Lab)
- The University of Pennsylvania’s Kislak Center
- The Library Company of Philadelphia
- The Lilly Library at Indiana University, Bloomington
- The Library of Congress
- The New York Public Library (both the main branch and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture)
- Harvard University (Houghton Library and the Harvard-Yenching Library)
- Amherst College
- The Free Library of Philadelphia
- The Thomas J. Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
- MIT Libraries
- The University of Delaware (including Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library)
- Tulane University’s Latin American Library
- Princeton’s Firestone Library
- The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
- Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, VA
- New York University (Bobst Library)
- The American Antiquarian Society
- Newberry Library, Chicago, IL
- The University of Chicago’s Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center in the Regenstein Library
- The University of Michigan
- The Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK
- North Bennet Street School
- University of York, UK
- Thin Ice Press, York, UK
- The University of Texas at Austin
The People of RBS
Behind Rare Book School is a global community dedicated to the study and stewardship of the historical archive. Learn more about the people whose work and vision sustain RBS
Support the Book Community
Your giving strengthens our programs, broadens access, and encourages the people who teach and learn at RBS. Learn how a gift to RBS breathes new life into old scholarly pursuits and welcomes new people and ideas to the study of the book and the humanities.