Audio of over 100 Rare Book School lectures now available online

Re:Audio of over 100 Rare Book School lectures now available... by eitally on Thursday May 14, 2015 @10:18PM (#9548638)

I went to UVA and took a couple of "rare books" courses (titles like "History of the Book", etc) under Terry Belanger, who was awarded a MacArthur fellowship in 2006 (I think) for his work. Rare Book School is a summer program that brings together specialists and students from around the globe to further and spread knowledge of bibliographic history -- printing, papermaking, binding, distributing, font creation, etc. It meets in the workspace of the Book Arts Press in one of the UVA libraries. They have their own "stacks" with a really eclectic collection. Everything from a bazillion different versions of John Updike's novels to one of a kind 16th century manuscripts and illuminated books. They also have a fully functional letterpress.

I'm only mentioning all this to get to the point that matters to me personally: Mr Belanger was my advisor and helped me with my senior project, which was to research and then stage an exhibit in UVA's Rotunda. I had a ton of fun... and realized I never wanted to be a museum curator. And that, my friends, is how I started my career in tech -- via a temp job through Manpower where I was hired as a web developer. :)

Proof: http://rarebookschool.org/all-programs/exhibitions/nickel/

My word of mouth marketing attempt: https://rarebookschool.org/2005/exhibitions/two_nickel.html

And if anyone is really interested, here's where you can buy a copy of the exhibit catalog: http://www.abebooks.com/Two-Nickel-Ephemera-Concerning-Thoma...

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Re:Audio of over 100 Rare Book School lectures now available... by benbreen on Thursday May 14, 2015 @10:32PM (#9548673)

That's a great story! I took my first Rare Book School class last year and Belanger is still teaching there, although he stepped down as director a few years ago. The Washington Post was actually filming a video about RBS when I was there. Talking to the journalist about Bezos and his plans while being surrounded by people operating an 18th-century style letterpress was kind of fascinating. This is the video if anyone is interested:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/08/28...

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Re:Audio of over 100 Rare Book School lectures now available... by eitally on Friday May 15, 2015 @07:06AM (#9549860)

RBS is a hidden gem. I like to think every research domain has something similar. Thanks for sharing the video -- that's cool. :)

(one of the things we did in one of his classes was learn about the history of printing and then prep & print our own folios using that press. pretty awesome, and a new perspective on the rapid pace of technology.)

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