RBS News

John Crichton to Chair RBS Board of Directors

The Rare Book School Board of Directors held their annual meeting on Saturday, 30 January in New York City. This meeting marked the completion of the term of Alice Schreyer as Chair of the Board of Directors, and the Board approved the election of John Crichton as its new Chair, with Giovanni Favretti as Vice-Chair, Beppy Landrum Owen as Secretary, and Joan Friedman as Treasurer.

John Crichton has been proprietor of The Brick Row Book Shop in San Francisco since 1983. John majored in journalism at the University of Kansas and began his career as a bookseller at Serendipity Books in Berkeley in 1980. […]

RBS-UVA Fellowship Applications Open

Applications for the 2016–17 RBS-UVA Fellowships are now being accepted. Rare Book School invites students at the University of Virginia to apply for a fellowship designed to enhance research employing special collections, including written, printed, and digital materials. Please note that you will need to complete a standard RBS course application via our applications page (submission by 29 February is encouraged as courses fill quickly).

Significant dates for the fellowship application process:

3 February 2016: Information Reception (11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m.; 118 Alderman Library)
4 February 2016: Information Reception (4–6 p.m.; […]

IMLS-RBS Fellowships Awarded

RBS is pleased to announce that the selection process for the IMLS-RBS Fellowships for Early-Career Librarians is now complete: a second cohort of twenty IMLS-RBS Fellows has been chosen. This fellowship will allow young professionals to attend an RBS course and to increase their professional involvement at the national level through participation in the conference of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), a division of the ALA. The aim of the program is to help fellows acquire skills relevant to professional work in special collections and build important professional networks. […]

RBS Director to Deliver BSA Annual Address

Rare Book School Director Michael F. Suarez, S.J. will deliver the address at the Bibliographical Society of America’s Annual Meeting, to be held on Friday, 29 January 2016 at the Cosmopolitan Club (122 East 66th Street, New York City). Michael’s address is titled “Hard Cases: Confronting Bibliographical Difficulty in Eighteenth-Century Texts.” The meeting begins at 4 p.m. and is open to the public. A reception will follow.

The Grolier Club has posted a full schedule of Bibliography Week events. […]

Apply Now for Summer 2016 Courses

Applications for summer 2016 courses are now being accepted via our online application system, myRBS.

Please log in to your myRBS account or create a new account to begin the application process.

Applications for Rare Book School courses are considered on a rolling basis until a course has reached enrollment capacity. To be considered for the first round of admissions decisions, submit your application(s) for summer courses by 29 February.

See the Course Application page for more details. […]

2015 Scholarship Awards Announced

Rare Book School is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2015 Scholarship Committee awards, as well as the winners of the Buice Scholarships for returning RBS students. Congratulations!

Recipients of the IMLS-RBS Fellowships will be announced in January. […]

Public Lectures During RBS Session at Harvard

Two public lectures will be held at Harvard University in conjunction with the RBS session there in early December:

• Ellis Tinios will lecture on “Hokusai’s Books: Art and Commerce in Nineteenth-Century Japan” on Monday, 7 December at 6 p.m. in the Common Room of the Harvard-Yenching Library.
• Christopher Hunter will deliver the 104th annual George Parker Winship Lecture, “Inventing Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography,” on Tuesday, 8 December at 5:30 p.m. in the Lamont Library Forum.

Receptions will follow both lectures. […]

RBS at the Boston Book Fair

If you’ll be in Boston for the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair (13–15 November), please be sure to stop by the Rare Book School table on Cultural Row. We’ll be at Booth 627 (floor plan), with printed copies of our just-released 2016 schedule, a slideshow of images from 2015 RBS classes, and more.

Rare Book School Director Michael F. Suarez, S.J., Associate Director & Curator of Collections Barbara Heritage, Assistant Curator of Collections Ruth-Ellen St. Onge, and Director of Communications & Outreach Jeremy Dibbell will all be at the Fair, […]

RBS Announces Summer 2016 Course Schedule

We are excited to announce the 2016 Rare Book School summer course schedule! Along with 25 courses in Charlottesville, RBS will also offer courses at the Lillian Goldman Law Library and Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University in New Haven; and in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts and the Library Company of Philadelphia. […]

Reminder: Applications for RBS Scholarships & IMLS-RBS Fellowships Due on 30 October

We are now accepting applications for the 2015 scholarship cycle. Applications are now open for all RBS-awarded scholarships (for both first-time and returning RBS students) and for the IMLS-RBS Fellowships for Early-Career Librarians. For general queries about scholarships or fellowships, see the FAQs page. Participation in the scholarship/fellowship program implies acceptance of the scholarship Terms and Conditions.

To begin the application process, please log into your myRBS account (or create a new myRBS account). On the Home screen, click the “Apply for a Scholarship or Fellowship” […]

Register now for ABAA-RBS Seminar Series in Boston

Rare Book School and the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA) are co-sponsoring a one-day seminar series at the North Bennet Street School in Boston, MA on Wednesday, 11 November 2015 (just prior to the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair). These seminars have been designed to be of interest to book collectors and booksellers, but signup is open to anyone with an interest in the topics covered. The cost to attend the seminar series is $300. Seminar instructors will be Terry Belanger, Don Lindgren, Nina Musinsky, Todd Pattison, and David Whitesell. […]

RBS Director Appointed CLIR Distinguished Presidential Fellow

Rare Book School Director Michael F. Suarez, S.J. has been appointed a Distinguished Presidential Fellow by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). Suarez “will provide expert counsel and strategic advice for CLIR’s Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives program and its Postdoctoral Fellowship program.”

See the full announcement from CLIR. […]

Now Accepting Applications for RBS Scholarships and IMLS-RBS Fellowships

We are now accepting applications for the 2015 scholarship cycle. Applications are now open for all RBS-awarded scholarships (for both first-time and returning RBS students) and for the IMLS-RBS Fellowships for Early-Career Librarians. For general queries about scholarships or fellowships, see the FAQs page. Participation in the scholarship/fellowship program implies acceptance of the scholarship Terms and Conditions.

To begin the application process, please log into your myRBS account (or create a new myRBS account). On the Home screen, click the “Apply for a Scholarship or Fellowship” […]

President Announces Intent to Nominate RBS Director to Serve on National Council on the Humanities

On Tuesday, 28 July, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Rare Book School Director Michael F. Suarez, S.J. to serve on the National Council on the Humanities, the advisory board of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

The National Council on the Humanities is composed of twenty-six distinguished private citizens appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, with each member serving staggered six-year terms.

See the full White House press release. […]

Now Accepting Applications for December Courses

Applications are now being accepted via myRBS for two Rare Book School courses being offered in Cambridge, MA, 6–11 December 2015:

• Book Production and Social Practice in Early Modern Europe and America, taught by Ann Blair and David D. Hall at the Houghton Library, Harvard University.
• The Art of the Book in Edo and Meiji Japan, 1615–1912, taught by Ellis Tinios at the Harvard Art Museums.

Please log in to your myRBS account or create a new account to begin the application process. […]

Ruth-Ellen St. Onge Joins RBS Staff as Assistant Curator of Collections

We are very pleased to announce that Ruth-Ellen St. Onge has joined the Rare Book School staff as Assistant Curator of Collections and Special Assistant to the Associate Director.

Ruth-Ellen holds a Master of Information Studies and a Ph.D. in French Studies and Book History and Print Culture from the University of Toronto. She is an active council member of the Bibliographical Society of Canada and the Canadian Association for the Study of Book Culture, and is the author of several published articles and reviews. For ten years, while pursuing her undergraduate and graduate studies, Ruth-Ellen worked as a research assistant in the Joseph Sablé Centre for 19th Century French Studies, […]

RBS Announces 2015 Summer Lecture Schedule

The staff at Rare Book School are thrilled to announce the exciting lineup for this summer’s lecture series at the University of Virginia. The lectures are free and open to the public. All talks will take place at 5:30 p.m. in the Auditorium of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library (unless otherwise noted). Lectures will last 30–40 minutes with 10 minutes for Q&A, and will be followed by a reception in the RBS space on the first floor of Alderman Library (Alderman 118). […]

RBS-Mellon Fellowships Awarded

RBS is pleased to announce that the selection process for the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in Critical Bibliography is now complete: a third cohort of 20 RBS-Mellon Fellows has been chosen. The aim of the fellowship program is to reinvigorate bibliographical studies within the humanities by introducing doctoral candidates, postdocs, and junior faculty to specialized skills, methods, and professional networks for conducting advanced research with material texts. Read more about the 2015–17 fellows. […]

Audio of Past RBS Lectures Now Available Online

We are very pleased to announce that audio recordings of more than 100 Book Arts Press/Rare Book School lectures from the past four decades are now available online at www.rarebookschool.org/lectures. Along with most lectures from the past several years, those now converted from the original cassette tapes include talks by Sue Allen, Nicolas Barker, and G. Thomas Tanselle, as well as: […]

Announcing the 2015–16 RBS-UVA Fellows

The 2015–16 cohort of RBS-UVA Fellows has been selected. The new fellows are:

• Jennifer Camp – Ph.D. student, McIntire Department of Art
• Peter Chekin – Ph.D. student, Department of French
• Elizabeth Doe – Ph.D. student, McIntire Department of Art
• Carol Guarnieri – Ph.D. student, Department of English
• Christian Howard – Ph.D. student, Department of English
• Peter Miller – Ph.D. student, Department of English
• Evan Waters – Ph.D. student, Department of Classics

[…]

First Lyell Lecture Available to View

Rare Book School Director Michael F. Suarez’s first Lyell Lecture, “Engraved Throughout: Pine’s Horace (1733) as a Bibliographical Object,” delivered in Oxford on 28 April, is available for viewing at http://livestream.com/oxuni/lyell, or via the player below. The Lyell Lectures continue through 14 May: see the full schedule.

[…]

New RBS Website

Welcome to the new Rare Book School website!

Twenty years after the very first RBS website, and nine years after the last large-scale redesign of the site in early 2006, we have made the leap to a WordPress platform, which will make the site much easier to update and to maintain. It also allows us to share many more photos, provides a more stable platform for video and audio files, and enables us to provide an online store for easy purchases of RBS publications and gifts. […]

RBS Director to Deliver Lyell Lectures

Rare Book School Director Michael F. Suarez, S.J. will deliver a series of six Lyell Lectures at the University of Oxford’s Weston Library beginning on 28 April. All lectures are free and open to the public, but space is limited and advance registration is required. […]

Manuscript Transcribathon at UVA

Join Rare Book School and the Folger Shakespeare Library for a Manuscript Transcribathon on Wednesday, 18 March in Alderman Library 421 (the large classroom in the Scholars’ Lab). The event will begin at noon with a brown-bag lunch talk by Heather Wolfe, RBS faculty member and Curator of Manuscripts at the Folger: “Why Manuscripts Matter: An Introduction to Early Modern Manuscripts Online.” […]

Now Accepting Applications for October Courses

Applications are now being accepted via myRBS for two Rare Book School courses being offered in New York City, 18–23 October 2015:

• The Printed Book in the West since 1800, taught by Eric Holzenberg at the Grolier Club.
• Special Collections Librarianship, taught by Michael Inman at the New York Public Library.

Please log in to your myRBS account or create a new account to begin the application process. […]

IMLS-RBS Fellowships Awarded

RBS is pleased to announce that the selection process for the IMLS-RBS Fellowships for Early-Career Librarians is now complete: a first cohort of twenty IMLS-RBS Fellows has been chosen. This fellowship will allow young professionals to attend an RBS course and to increase their professional involvement at the national level through participation in the conference of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), a division of the ALA. The aim of the program is to help fellows acquire skills relevant to professional work in special collections and build important professional networks. […]

Barbara Heritage Appointed Associate Director of Rare Book School

We are very pleased to announce that Barbara Heritage has been appointed Rare Book School’s Associate Director & Curator of Collections.

Barbara has worked at RBS since 2002 in increasingly responsible capacities. “Over many years, Barbara Heritage’s service to Rare Book School has been exemplary,” said Director Michael F. Suarez, S.J. In December 2014, Barbara was graduated from the University of Virginia with her Ph.D. in English literature after completing her dissertation, “Brontë and the Bookmakers: Jane Eyre in the Nineteenth-Century Literary Marketplace.”

“Michael Suarez told me three years ago or so that he would promote me once I had earned my doctoral degree,” […]

RBS-UVA Fellowship Applications Open

Applications for the 2015–16 RBS-UVA Fellowships are now being accepted. Rare Book School invites students at the University of Virginia to apply for a fellowship designed to enhance research employing special collections, including written, printed, and born-digital materials.

Significant dates for the fellowship application process:

4 February 2015: Information Reception (4–6 p.m.; 118 Alderman Library)
5 February 2015: Information Reception (4–6 p.m.; 118 Alderman Library)
17 March 2015: Project Proposal Workshop (4:30–6 p.m.; 118 Alderman Library)
2 April 2015: Application Deadline (5 p.m.)

Accepted applicants will attend a week-long course at RBS in 2015, […]

Apply Now for Spring & Summer 2015 Courses

Applications for spring and summer 2015 courses are now being accepted via our online application system, myRBS.

Please log in to your myRBS account or create a new account to begin the application process.

Applications for Rare Book School courses are considered on a rolling basis until a course has reached enrollment capacity. To be considered for the first round of admissions decisions, submit your application(s) for spring and summer courses by 20 February.

See the Applications page for more details. […]

2014 Fath Scholarship Awards Announced

We are happy to announce the recipients of the 2014 Fath Scholarships for Artists and Artisans of the Book. Congratulations! […]