News Archives

A Protocol to Protect Cultural Collections in the Age of AI

One of the bedrock principles of Rare Book School is meticulous care and vigilance for the integrity of the human record. We encourage rigor in methods and in ethics practiced by libraries, special collections, archives, museums, and in the book trade. Our shared vision focuses not just on finding answers in books, but in communicating the practice by which we arrive at our inferences, including transparency about the sources and methods we use.

A threat of the new age of AI is that some models can deracinate information from its sources, effectively removing the necessity to “show the work” and any responsibilities to the repositories from which data has been drawn. […]

RBS Treasurer Victoria D. Harker Elected Vice Rector of UVA Board of Visitors

On 20 February, RBS Board Treasurer Victoria D. Harker was unanimously elected Vice Rector of the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors (BOV), effective immediately.

In a recent UVA Today story, Harker said, “It is an honor to be selected to serve as the vice rector of the Board of Visitors. I am grateful to my colleagues for the trust they have placed in me, and I look forward to working alongside Rector Brown and the entire board to support this great institution and advance its important education, research and health care mission.”

Read more about Harker and her previous 17 January appointment to the BOV by Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger on the RBS website. […]

Remembering Joan M. Friedman

It is with profound sadness that we announce the death of Joan M. Friedman on 14 February 2026. With professional talents spanning rare book curation and general accounting, Joan was an ardent early supporter of Rare Book School (RBS) and a long-serving Treasurer from 2007 to 2019.  

Her early association with RBS goes back to its Columbia University origins at the School of Library Service, co-teaching the illustration processes course (I-20) with Terry Belanger from 1983 into the late 1980s. That class annually made a highly memorable field trip to New Haven, where Joan was Curator of Rare Books at the Yale Center for British Art.  […]

Impact Story: Marshall Scholars Piper Farmer & Jack Wallace

When the Marshall Scholarship program announced its new cohort of scholars in fall 2025, the list included two Rare Book School staff members: Summer Session Assistant Piper Farmer and Program Assistant Jack Wallace. Wallace and Farmer were selected from a nationwide pool of more than 1,000 applicants, representing numerous professional and academic fields, to receive this prestigious honor. According to the Marshall website, the scholarship aims “to enable intellectually distinguished young Americans, their country’s future leaders, to study in the UK.”  

Farmer is completing a degree in Literatures in English, with a minor in History of Art and Creative Writing, […]

Impact Story: Cataloging Medieval Manuscript Fragments in Chicago

Medieval manuscript fragments can be particularly challenging to catalog: they are severed from their original codicological contexts, exist in various states of preservation, differ in size, and many times have been incorporated in situ as pastedowns or binding strengtheners within later books. Cataloging such items can be a time-consuming process, though with the rewarding outcome of piecing together missing parts of a puzzle. For Chicago librarians Megan Kelly and Rebecca Flore, Rare Book School has been integral to helping them do this work as they strive to make the medieval collections in their respective libraries more accessible to researchers.  […]

Remembering Our Friend Richard C. Ramer

Rare Book School mourns the passing of rare book antiquarian Richard C. Ramer, who died on 31 January 2026. In addition to being a member of the Grolier Club, Mr. Ramer was also a generous supporter of Rare Book School.  

We are honored to share this remembrance of Mr. Ramer, courtesy of his family, and to celebrate his legacy:  

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our great friend, colleague, and mentor, Richard C. Ramer (1942-2026). A rare book antiquarian based in New York with an additional office in Lisbon, Portugal, […]

Virginia Governor Spanberger Appoints RBS Board Treasurer and RBS Supporter to UVA’s Board of Visitors

Victoria D. Harker, Treasurer of the RBS Board of Directors, and Peter M. Grant II, a loyal RBS supporter, were both appointed to the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors (BOV) by Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger on 17 January 2026.

Victoria D. Harker is former Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for TEGNA Inc. and has held leadership roles on many public-company and non-profit boards. She received her B.A. in English from the University of Virginia and an M.B.A. from American University.

Harker’s 17 January appointment to the BOV marks the third time she has served on that body. […]

Rare Book School Summer 2026 Course Applications Now Open

Rare Book School (RBS) is now accepting applications for its summer 2026 courses. This year’s schedule features almost 50 in-person and online courses, including nine new courses. Courses in Charlottesville will once again be offered at RBS’s home in the University of Virginia’s Edgar Shannon Library.

RBS has launched new partnerships and course locations this summer: York in the United Kingdom, North Bennet Street School in Boston, and the University of Texas at Austin’s Harry Ransom Center. […]

Summer Positions Available: 2026 Rare Book School Summer Assistants

Rare Book School is hiring summer assistants to provide support in managing course sessions, catering, and other tasks related to the running of our 2026 summer programming in Charlottesville. This is an exciting opportunity to participate in a leading humanities organization and aid in the RBS’s mission of creating a “community equipped to advance historically informed understandings of our cultural heritage.”

RBS is seeking conscientious, detail-oriented, and service-driven undergraduate and graduate students as well as early-career professionals to work as summer assistants in Charlottesville during the following weeks and weekends:  […]

Rare Book School Mourns the Passing of William T. Buice III

It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of William T. Buice III on 10 November 2025. A lawyer and book collector, Bill was an outspoken advocate for Rare Book School (RBS) as well as for the book collecting community and the wider nonprofit world. 

As the second Chair of the RBS Board of Directors (2008–2014), Bill helped build the Board in ways that propelled its culture of philanthropy and fiduciary oversight. Among his many accomplishments as Board Chair was overseeing the successful transition of RBS’s directorship from Terry Belanger to Michael F. Suarez, S.J., in 2009. […]

SoFCB Junior Fellows Gain Hands-On Experience at NYC Field School

Founded in 2017, the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography (SoFCB) is a Rare Book School program that seeks to advance the study of texts, images, and artifacts as material objects through capacious, interdisciplinary scholarship. Each year, the Society, which now numbers more than 100 members, selects ten early-career scholars to join the program as Junior Fellows through an open application process that considers their work with textual artifacts. Junior Fellows come from a variety of fields ranging from literature, medieval studies, history, and art history to musicology, anthropology, religious studies, classics, and more. […]

Applications Open for RBS Online Course on Publishers’ Archives

Are you interested in exploring how publishers’ archives illuminate the history of the American book? Apply now for Rare Book School’s Winter 2026 online course, H-95v: Reading Publishers’ Archives for the Study of the American Book, taught by noted bibliographer and book historian Michael Winship. This 22-hour course meets Mondays and Thursdays from 26 January to 26 February 2026. Apply by 1 December 2025 for first-round consideration; applications received after this date will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the course is full. […]

See You at the Boston Book Fair!

If you’ll be at the 47th annual Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair from 7 to 9 November, please be sure to stop by the Rare Book School table on Cultural Row. We’ll be at Booth 427, with information about our courses, fellowships, job opportunities, and more.

RBS staff members Michael F. Suarez, S.J., Barbara Heritage, Zoe Langer, Andrew Kuhn, and Katie Hodges-Kluck will be at our table as well as on the show floor. We look forward to seeing you at the Hynes Convention Center in Downtown Boston soon! […]

RBS Now Accepting Applications for Mellon SoFCB Junior Fellows Program

Rare Book School’s Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography (SoFCB) invites applicants to its 2026 cohort of Junior Fellows. The SoFCB is a community of scholars working across disciplines to advance the study of texts, images, and artifacts as material objects. Ten Junior Fellows will be selected to join the SoFCB in 2026; they may become Senior Fellows after completing two years of the fellowship’s required activities in good standing. The application deadline for the SoFCB Junior Fellows Program is Wednesday, 19 November 2025 at 11:59 p.m. ET. […]

RBS Offers Fall Online Course About Thinking Bibliographically

Paying attention to the physical characteristics of texts is broadly useful for studying any printed works of the Western hand-press period (roughly 1450-1800). But how does one start to think bibliographically, noticing such characteristics and knowing what questions they might lead to?

Applications are currently being accepted for Rare Book School’s Fall 2025 online course, G-15v: A Bibliographical Introduction to the Hand-Press Period, which answers this question and more. This 22-hour course, taught by Sarah Werner, runs on Sunday afternoons from 19 October to 14 December (except for 30 November). The application deadline is Friday, […]

RBS Scholarship and Fellowship Applications Are Now Open

Rare Book School at the University of Virginia is now accepting applications for its 2025 scholarship and fellowship cycle.

Applications are open for:

• All RBS-awarded scholarships (for both first-time and returning RBS students). See the Scholarships page for descriptions of the various scholarships available. For questions about scholarships, please email rbs_scholarships@virginia.edu. Scholarship applications are due by 11:59 p.m. ET on Sunday, 2 November 2025.
• The M. C. Lang Fellowship in Book History, Bibliography, and Humanities Teaching with Historical Sources. The Lang Fellowship is a two-year program open to faculty and librarians at liberal arts colleges and small universities in the United States (i.e.,

[…]

Video and Audio of RBS Summer 2025 Lectures Now Available

Rare Book School proudly presents the video and audio recordings of talks from our Summer 2025 Lecture Series. The list, with links, is below.

A Parallel History of Books and Blooks
Watch on YouTube
Listen on SoundCloud
Mindell Dubansky, Conservator, Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jane Austen on the Cheap
Watch on YouTube
Listen on SoundCloud
Janine Barchas, Chancellor’s Council Centennial Professor in the Book Arts, University of Texas at Austin
The 2025 Kenneth W. […]

Fame Isn’t Forever: 160-Year-Old Card Game Uncovers History of Changing Literary Trends

RBS to Open New Exhibition This Summer

Life is sometimes likened to a game of cards: luck can change, forcing us to play the hand we’re dealt. But, as a new exhibition reveals, one historic card game can be a mirror of life, reflecting the literary reputations of once-famous writers and the bookish interests of past readers.

This fall, Rare Book School will open a new exhibition, Famous and Forgotten: The Game of Authors, on the second floor of UVA’s Edgar Shannon Library. An opening reception is scheduled for Friday 12 September at 5:00 p.m., […]

Support RBS Students through the Annual Fund Matching-Gift Challenge!

Rare Book School has concluded another successful summer of courses both at home and far afield. We welcomed some 570 students to 43 courses, which took place in Charlottesville, at nine partner institutions—including our first international courses at the Bodleian Library in Oxford—and around the globe with eight course offerings available online. RBS also hosted ten free public lectures, which examined topics such as a Renaissance publisher’s profit/risk strategies and the role that inexpensive editions played in making Jane Austen famous.

Even as our School continues to thrive, we recognize a growing crisis of financial access for our students. […]

RBS in Oxford: “A Match Made in Library/Book History Heaven”

This summer, Rare Book School hosted its first-ever international courses at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. H-195 Transmission of the Bible from the Beginnings to 1500 was taught by Peter Toth, the Cornelia Starks Curator of Greek Collections at the Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries and former Curator of Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts at the British Library. David Rundle, Senior Lecturer in Latin and Palaeography in the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Kent, taught
M-60 Researching Medieval Manuscripts: From Cataloging to Cultural History.  […]