News Archives

Call for Submissions: Metropolitan Museum Journal

The editorial board of the peer-reviewed Metropolitan Museum Journal invites submissions of original research on works of art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collections.  

The journal publishes articles and research notes. All submissions must take accessioned objects in the Met’s collection (including illustrated rare books in the Met’s collections, such as those housed in Watson Library) as their points of departure. Articles contribute extensive and thoroughly argued scholarship, whereas research notes are often smaller in scope, focusing on a specific aspect of new research or presenting a significant finding from technical analysis. […]

Jane Austen Society of North America Online Lecture

JASNA, the Jane Austen Society of North America, is reinvigorating its regional group in Central Virginia. The society’s first virtual meeting will be a free public lecture at 2 p.m. on Sunday, 28 August. Dr. Juliette Wells (Goucher College) will be sharing the never-before-told full story of how the topaz cross pendants that Charles Austen gave to his sisters Cassandra and Jane passed from descendants to an American collector, Charles Beecher Hogan, and from him to Jane Austen’s House in Chawton, England. Of special interest are the reading journals that Hogan kept for two decades, in which he reflected on his reading and rereading of Austen. […]

Rare Books Librarian – University of Southern California

USC Libraries at the University of Southern California invites creative, collaborative, and outstanding candidates to fill a full-time continuing appointment-track faculty position as Rare Books Librarian. This position’s anticipated start date is October 2022. USC  is looking for candidates with experience managing and developing rare book collections, primary source literacy instruction, exhibition curation, and outreach. The closing date for applications is 1 August 2022 or until filled. For more information about this position, contact Marje Schuetze-Coburn, chair of the standing search committee, at schuetze@usc.edu. Click here for the full posting. […]

Special Collections Instruction Librarian and Curator for Black Arts and Culture – James Madison University

James Madison University Libraries seeks a creative and energetic librarian/archivist or scholar to fill a newly created, tenure-track faculty position in our Special Collections department. This position is designed to be filled by a colleague with significant subject knowledge in Black arts and culture, teaching expertise with archival collections, and enthusiasm for the power of primary sources. Click here for full details. Review of applications begins 6 June 2022. […]

RBS Announces 2022 Summer Lectures

We are thrilled to announce the lineup for this summer’s lecture series at the University of Virginia. All talks will take place at 5:30 p.m. ET. Monday lectures will be held in the Dome Room of the Rotunda; Wednesday lectures, in the Auditorium of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. Lectures will last 30–40 minutes with 10 minutes for Q&A, and will be followed by a reception. Lecture recordings will be made available by fall 2022.

Monday, 6 June: Dorothy C. Wong, Professor of East Asian Art, University of Virginia: Making Merit: East Asian Buddhist Material Culture of the Seventh and Eighth Centuries – NEH-Global Book Histories Initiative Lecture […]

Rare Books Curator of Special Collections – Vanderbilt University Libraries

Vanderbilt University is hiring for the position of Rare Books Curator of Special Collections. The Curator of Special Collections conducts outreach and instruction utilizing rare books and other resources from the collections. This position meets frequently with faculty and students to promote the use of rare books in the classroom. The Curator is also responsible for interacting with existing and potential donors and for curating exhibitions for the libraries. The Curator acquires rare books by purchase and donation to augment the collections. The position reports to the Director of Special Collections.

Please apply by 31 May 2022 for first consideration for this position. […]

Announcing the 2022 RBS-Mellon SoFCB Junior Fellows

The Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography (SoFCB) at Rare Book School is pleased to welcome its 2022–24 cohort of Junior Fellows, including the recipient of the Nancy Norton Tomasko Fellowship. Many congratulations to all the new Junior Fellows; we look forward to seeing you at RBS!

The names and institutional affiliations of 2022–24 RBS-Mellon SoFCB Junior Fellows are:

Cat Lambert – Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Classics, Columbia University

Amanda Licastro – Emerging and Digital Literacy Designer, University of Pennsylvania Libraries, […]

Now Available Online: “LEOcode” Compendium of Watermarks and Resource for Coding, Visualizing Handmade Laid Papers

LEOcode is a working compendium of watermarks in the Codex Arundel, Codex Leicester, and other papers of Leonardo da Vinci and is intended to be a research tool for art historians, conservators, and paper/book historians. This website presents the results of an innovative computational approach to enhance, measure, compare, and match pre-machine-made papers through the detailed encoding and visualization of their internal manufactured patterns, including watermarks, chain line intervals, and laid line densities. In addition to identifying papers formed from the exact same mold (moldmates) among Leonardo’s papers, LEOcode provides enhanced photographic images of every available watermarked sheet in the Codex Arundel and the Codex Leicester, […]

Library Services Supervisor for Rare Books & Special Collections – Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh is hiring for the position of Library Services Supervisor for Rare Books & Special Collections. The Library Services Supervisor will work to conserve, develop, manage, and promote the Library’s rare books and special collections, implement policies and procedures to ensure secure access and long-term preservation of the collections and develop relationships within the local community designed to foster current and future interest and care of the collection.

Applications are due 5 May 2022. Click here to review the full position description. […]

APHA Conference: Call for Papers

47th Annual APHA National Conference: “Making Artistic Noise: Printing and Social Activism from the 1960s to the Present”
(Los Angeles, California, 13–15 October 2022)

The American Printing History Association (APHA) is pleased to announce a call for papers for its 2022 annual conference in Los Angeles. The theme of this year’s conference: the social and political movements of the 1960s and 1970s that reverberated in the printing and printmaking world, inspiring artists and art collectives nationwide. An era that started with the continuing struggles of the Civil Rights Movement, the Kennedy assassination, and the explosion of youth culture gave way to the counterculture, […]

Announcing the 2022–24 RBS-Mellon Cultural Heritage Fellows

Rare Book School is pleased to announce the 2022–24 RBS-Mellon Cultural Heritage Fellows in the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship for Diversity, Inclusion & Cultural Heritage. Many congratulations to all the fellows.

The 2022–24 RBS-Mellon Cultural Heritage Fellows are: […]

BSA Workshop: “Touch to See: A Nineteenth-Century Book for Blind Readers”

The Bibliographical Society of America invites registration for “Touch to See: A Nineteenth-Century Book for Blind Readers,” a workshop at Swem Library, the College of William and Mary, 3 June 2022, 10 a.m.–2 p.m. ET.

Led by Dr. Amanda Stuckey, Assistant Professor of English at Central Penn College in Harrisburg, PA, this workshop is free and open to the public, and participants may attend in person (lunch will be provided) or via Zoom. Click here to register. Registration is requested by 10 May.

We often think of sight-impairment as a barrier to literacy, […]

Librarian (Codicology Specialist) – Law Library of Congress

The Law Library of Congress is hiring for the position of Librarian (Codicology Specialist). This position is located in the Collections Services Division, Global Legal Collection Directorate, Law Library. The position requires the joint skills of a cataloger and a subject matter expert in rare books, and particularly in incunables. There is a foreign language requirement for this position based on the language of the material being described, and the incumbent should have a professional proficiency of one or more of these languages in addition to English: Latin, German, and Italian. Applications close 2 May 2022. Click here for full details. […]

Announcing the Kenneth W. Rendell Annual Endowed Lecture at Rare Book School

Rare Book School is pleased to announce that Kenneth W. Rendell and Shirley McNerney have generously endowed an annual lecture and publication series on the importance of original manuscripts and rare books to human understanding. The Kenneth W. Rendell Endowed Lecture at Rare Book School will focus on the connection that rare book and manuscript collecting provides with people and events of the past, our shared human history, and the intellectual thrill and emotional pleasures of collecting. This lecture series will spotlight the roles of collectors, librarians, and dealers, not only in preserving human history but also in providing insight and perspectives into the present and future. […]

“The Eternal Return of Print-Digital Literary Publishing” with Élika Ortega

The Scholars’ Lab at the University of Virginia invites you to attend a virtual presentation on “The Eternal Return of Print-Digital Literary Publishing” by Élika Ortega on Wednesday, 20 April, 2–3:15 p.m. ET. This Zoom presentation is free and open to the public; advance registration is required. Click here to view the details and register.

Élika will look at the cycles of enthusiasm and retrenchment in print-digital literary publishing since the mid 1980s. In an era where it’s still unclear if the digital will yield a new standard form of the book beyond the e-book, […]

“Digital Writing & Digital Divides in the U.S.” with Leonardo Flores

The Scholars’ Lab at the University of Virginia invites you to attend a virtual presentation on “Digital Writing & Digital Divides in the U.S.: Electronic Literature & Privilege” by Leonardo Flores on Wednesday, 6 April, 10:30–11:45 a.m. ET. This Zoom presentation is free and open to the public; advance registration is required. Click here to view the details and register.

Leonardo will trace how white practitioners have dominated e-lit authorship and study: materially through who’s had access to technology and programming education, and via biased definitions of the field limiting it to only certain privileged aesthetics. […]

ABAA Mentorship Program: Call for Applications

The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA) Women’s Initiative Committee is proud to announce the second round of the ABAA Mentorship Program.

In an effort to further the Association’s mission, the mentorship program builds relationships between ABAA dealers and early career booksellers, provides professional development opportunities for prospective ABAA members, and creates a recruitment pipeline that increases the number and diversity of qualified applicants to the ABAA. The 2022 mentee application can be found here.

During the year-long mentorship period, with support from ABAA Headquarters, mentors and mentees meet monthly to discuss aspects of their individual businesses and the trade as a whole. […]

“Found Objects Objetos encontrados: A Bilingual Poetry Reading” with Nicole Cecilia Delgado

You’re invited to attend “Found Objects Objetos Encontrados: A Bilingual Poetry Reading” with Puerto Rican poet and book artist Nicole Cecilia Delgado, Thursday, 24 March 2022, 5:30 p.m. ET, in Clark Hall 108 at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

Nicole Cecilia Delgado will read from her most recent bilingual anthology, Objetos encontrados / Found Objects (DoubleCross Press, 2021).

This live-only event is free and open to the public; no registration is required.

“Nicole Cecilia Delgado is a poet, translator, and book artist. Her latest book of poems, Periodo Especial(Aguadulce/La Impresora), […]

2022 Library of Congress Literacy Awards: Call for Applications

The Library of Congress invites nonprofit organizations (large of small) that have an impact on literacy to apply for the 2022 Library of Congress Literacy Awards. Winners receive cash awards and public recognition, and have the opportunity to network with other recipients. Click here for application instructions. Applications close 4 March.

Read the full press release here. […]

RBS Announces M.C. Lang Fellows in Book History, Bibliography, and Humanities Teaching with Historical Sources

With pleasure, Rare Book School announces the third cohort of M. C. Lang Fellows in Book History, Bibliography, and Humanities Teaching with Historical Sources. Congratulations to all, and we look forward to welcoming you to RBS this summer! […]