Rare Book School sponsors a number of free, open-to-the-public evening lectures each year at the University of Virginia on a wide variety of bibliographical topics; please browse our list of past lectures for a sampling. RBS lectures are usually held Mondays and Wednesdays while RBS is in session, at 5:30 p.m. in the Dome Room of the Rotunda or in the Auditorium of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. A reception follows each lecture.

• Jun
  5

  2023
  The Surveyor’s Eye: Topographic Mapping and the Contest for Empire in Eighteenth-Century British America – NEH-SHARP Living American History in Primary Documents Lecture

  Lecturer: S. Max Edelson - Professor of History, University of Virginia
  Dome Room, UVA Rotunda • 5:30 p.m.
  
• Jun
  7

  2023
  Reader = Inessential Worker: Book History After Lockdown

  Lecturer: Leah Price - Distinguished Professor & Director, Rutgers Book Initiative, Rutgers University
  UVA Special Collections • 5:30 p.m.
  
• Jun
  12

  2023
  Beside/s Milton: Other Histories of the Free Library of Philadelphia’s First Folio

  Lecturer: Claire M. L. Bourne - Associate Professor of English, Pennsylvania State University
  Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania Libraries (Philadelphia) • 5:30 p.m.
  

Rare Book School sponsors and co-sponsors a range of programming at various times throughout the year, including activities at book fairs, symposia at UVA and other locations, and more. These include events organized by members of the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography at their home institutions.

• May
  24

  2023
  Collective Voices: Online Community Archives on Cuba and Its Diaspora

  Presented by: The Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship for Diversity, Inclusion & Cultural Heritage at Rare Book School
  Zoom • 6:30 pm ET
  
• Apr
  21

  2023
  Preserving and Analyzing Digital Texts

  Presented by: The Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography
  Zoom • 3:00-4:30 p.m. ET
  
• Mar
  29

  2023
  Continental England: Author Elizaveta Strakhov in Conversation with Zachary Hines on Form, Translation, and Chaucer in the Hundred Years’ War

  Presented by: The Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography
  Zoom • 12:00-1:00 p.m. ET
  

Since 1992, Rare Book School has been responsible for a rotating series of exhibitions in the Dome Room of the Rotunda at the University of Virginia, many curated by UVA undergraduate and graduate students. The books and other materials shown in these exhibitions are drawn both from the RBS collections and from the UVA Library, supplemented by occasional loans by other institutions and individuals.

• Sep 28
  /
  Dec 23
  

  
  2022
  Building the Book from the Ancient World to the Present Day: Five Decades of Rare Book School & the Book Arts Press

  Curated by: Barbara Heritage & Ruth-Ellen St. Onge
  The Grolier Club, 47 East 60th Street, New York
• Jun 6
  /
  May 1
  

  
  2019
  Comics in Circuit

  Curated by: Ruth-Ellen St. Onge, Jennifer Camp, Elizabeth Dorton, Devon Shannahan, Katherine Smith, and Zach Tauscher
  Dome Room, UVA Rotunda
• Jun 13
  /
  Apr 30
  

  
  2018
  An Archipelago of Readers: Forming a Literary Culture in Digital Media

  Curated by: Katherine McNamara, with the assistance of Will Norton
  Dome Room, UVA Rotunda