Books at Virginia: Rare Book School

Books at Virginia: Rare Book School (RBS): Rare Book School is
pleased to announce its schedule of courses for the summer of 1996,
23 five-day non-credit courses of bookish interest. The brochure and
related documents are available at our Web site:

    poe.acc.virginia.edu/~oldbooks/rbs96/rbs96.html

Participants of DistList may be particularly interested in two of
the courses being offered:

Week One
Monday 15 July - Friday 19 July

12. Publishers' Bookbindings, 1830-1910.

    The purpose of this course is to develop skills in recognizing
    and understanding the technical and stylistic components of c19
    American book covers. As the microforming and digital imaging of
    brittle books proceeds in research libraries, it becomes
    increasingly important to appreciate the book and its cover as
    they were initially manufactured. Each day, significant
    bookcloths and endpapers are discarded, because their role in
    book history is not understood.

    The course will provide laboratory sessions in distinguishing
    between graining, stamping, and embossing on leather, paper, and
    cloth-covered bindings. The differences between American and
    English covers will be explored. The BAP collection of
    clothbound books, intensively built up over the last several
    years and chronologically arranged, will be used to illustrate
    the evolution of cover design and its relation to Victorian
    decorative art and architecture. Special emphasis will be given
    to identifying ``signed'' bindings--the periods in which they
    occur and how to look for them.

    Sue Allen: 84-85 91-95

Week Two
Monday 22 July - Friday 26 July

21 European Bookbinding, 1500-1800.

    How bookbinding in the post-medieval period developed to meet
    the demands placed on it by the growth of printing: techniques
    and materials employed to meet these demands; the development of
    temporary bindings (eg pamphlets and publishers' bindings); the
    emergence of structures usually associated with volume
    production in the c19; the development of decoration; the dating
    of undecorated bindings; the identification of national and
    local binding styles. Instructor: Nicholas Pickwoad. (July
    22-26)

    Nicholas Pickwoad is a book conservator in private practice.
    Between 1992 and 1995, he was Conservator at the Harvard
    University Library, before which he was Advisor to the [English]
    National Trust for Conservation. This will be the 16th time he
    has taught this celebrated course in RBS.

Books at Virginia: Rare Book School (RBS) offers a collection of
five-day, non-credit courses on topics concerning rare books,
manuscripts, and special collections. Students make a full-time
commitment to any course they attend, from 8:30 am to 5 pm, Monday-
Friday; most students also attend an informal dinner on the Sunday
evening before their first class on Monday. In addition to the
formal classes, there are early-evening public lectures and other
events throughout the four weeks of RBS.

The educational and professional pre-requisites for RBS courses
vary. Some courses are primarily directed toward research librarians
and archivists. Others are intended for academics, persons working
in the antiquarian book trade, bookbinders and conservators,
students of the history of books and printing, and others with an
interest in the subjects being treated.

The tuition for each five-day course is $565. Low-cost,
air-conditioned dormitory housing will be offered on the historic
central grounds of the University, and nearby hotel accommodation is
readily available. Students are encouraged to take advantage of
RBS's housing to arrive a few days before their course, or stay a
few days later, in order to give themselves (and their families) a
better chance to explore the Charlottesville area, which includes
many sites of historic interest as well as various vacation
attractions.

For further information about any aspect of RBS

write:

    Rare Book School
    114 Alderman Library
    University of Virginia
    Charlottesville VA 22903-2498
    804-924-8851
    Fax: 804-924-8824
    biblio [at] virginia__edu

Prospective students for RBS courses are invited to consult the
widely-distributed annual RBS Yearbooks, in which students'
exhaustive evaluations of all RBS courses offered since 1989 have
been published in their entirety. RBS was not held in 1992. Copies
of the 1990, 1993, and 1994 RBS Yearbooks are in print and available
postpaid for $10 (1990 and 1993) or $15 (1994). The 1995 RBS
Yearbook is in the press, and will be available on about March 15th
for $15. Copies of the 1989 and 1991 Yearbooks are out of print.

All courses announced in the RBS brochure and ECD will in fact be
held. There is no minimum number of students necessary for a course
to run; RBS does not cancel courses.

Electronic copies of the ECD and various other RBS documents can be
accessed through our World Wide Web site:

    http://poe.acc.virginia.edu/~oldbooks/

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 9:66
                  Distributed: Monday, March 25, 1996
                        Message Id: cdl-9-66-020
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