Catching up

Dear readers,

While it's been some time since I last posted to this blog, I feel the need to strike the keys once again and continue traveling the long and winding road of my special collections journey.

When we last met, I had returned from a course at UVA's Rare Book School on Special Collections Librarianship, taught by Alice Schreyer. Each and every night I posted on the day's activities and now, some two years later, I can say that the class workbook is on my desk as I type. It is quite a handy and useful collection of items. I turn to it as a resource regularly.

To bring us both up to speed, I attended the Special Collections Librarianship course for two reasons. First, as a former bookseller and mid life career changer, my goal to become a special collections librarian would benefit from this course. Second, thanks to the great folks at the University of South Carolina, especially my advisor, Dr. Samantha Hastings, I was able to include the RBS course as part of my plan of study. It was Dr. Hastings who suggested I maintain a blog for the course and I enjoyed the task immensely.

And I meant to keep it up afterwards, but final classes and nearing graduation took over and I abandoned my post, as it were, until now.

What brings me back, you might ask? The answer is simple: I'm returning to Rare Book School this summer. This time I'm attending Mike Widener's course, Law Books: History & Connoisseurship, in my new role as Visiting Staff Librarian at West Virginia University's College of Law. I am currently serving as the Archives and Rare Book Librarian and it is a job I truly love. I feel fortunate to have been given the opportunity to do what I love and the support to continue my special collections education and further develop skills that will enhance my work.

So, you might be asking yourself, how did I occupy myself between courses at RBS? How have I filled the intervening time? Quite busily I must say. After graduation from USC I worked diligently to keep up my skills while also applying for positions in a very difficult market and I would recommend the following activities to any job searchers: I joined groups that suited my skills and interests, such as the Appalachian Studies Association, the Rare Books and Manuscripts division of ALA, West Virginia Library Association, SHARP, the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, APHA, the American Printing History Association, among others. I attended conferences, I networked with colleagues, and most importantly, I presented original research at each conference I attended. In short, I got my name out, I met people, I worked diligently on a research project and published the results.

The publication, "Portraits of Appalachia: The Identification of Stereotype in Publishers' Book Bindings, 1850 - 1915," was published in the Journal of Appalachian Studies, vol 15, Nos. 1 and 2, Spring and Fall 2009, is part of a long term research project that examines nineteenth century cultural attitudes as displayed on the covers of publishers' bookbindings. This research is based on my work as rare book room staff at WVU's Rare Book Room in the Wise Library at the Downtown campus, an independent study at USC, and the education I received from an earlier Rare Book School course, Publishers' Bookbindings, 1830 - 1910, taught by Sue Allen. The research focuses on the identification of stereotype on the covers of nineteenth century books on Appalachians and the Appalachian region. Other papers are in preparation for submission to journals and I am currently working on a book proposal for this line of research.

But by far the high point after graduation was receiving the call to work for WVU's College of Law as archivist and rare book librarian. As I mentioned earlier, this is a job I love. I have the pleasure of putting my skills to use and developing new ones. My work entails the arranging and describing of the papers of an eminent legal scholar, development of policies and procedures for the rare book room, conservation and preservation activities, research and rare book cataloging. Life is rich.

The next post will take a look at the pre-class readings for the RBS course. I am well along the way in my readings and I've made notes as I've read. I'll share them with you and we can once again, travel this road together.