Rare Book School courses



Greetings from Rare Book School!

RBS provides five-day, intensive courses for students from all disciplines and levels to study the history of manuscript, printed, and born-digital materials with leading scholars and professionals in the field.

Our 2013 online application is now available at the Rare Book School website, http://www.rarebookschool.org/.

This year, we are pleased to present more than thirty courses on the history of books and printing. The following four courses may be of particular interest to those whose work involves issues of Science, Technology, and Medicine:

*I-40 The Illustrated Scientific Book to 1800,* taking place *July 29–August 2 in Charlottesville, VA. *Taught by Roger Gaskell (Roger Gaskell Rare Books). This new course will consider the production, formal qualities, and function of images in scientific books, focusing on how and why images were made. Examples will be drawn from a wide range of scientific, medical, technical, and architectural books from the earliest years of printing to 1800. Topics will include: the roles of authors and artists; the interrelationships of images and verbal texts; and the operation of diagrams, representational illustrations, and graphic displays of data in scientific communication. The course will be of value not only to librarians and historians who work with scientific materials, but also to other researchers with an interest in the material aspects of illustrated books. For more information:

  *C-60 Examining the Medical Book: History & Connoisseurship*, taking place*June 17­–21 in Charlottesville, VA *. Taught by Stephen Greenberg (National Library of Medicine). Medical literature has always pushed the boundaries of technology: in production, in distribution, in its use of illustration processes, and in indexing.
This new course will examine the medical book from the time of the ancient Egyptians to the present. Students will be introduced to the standard bibliographical resources in the field, both in print and online, for purposes of scholarship, connoisseurship, and collection development. This exciting new course will be of particular interest to scholars who study the history of science and medicine. For more information:

*C-85 Law Books: History & Connoisseurship*, taking place* June 17–21 in New Haven, CT*. Taught by Mike Widener (Yale Law School). Aimed at individuals and librarians who collect or research historical legal materials, the course will survey printed and manuscript legal materials in Anglo-American, European, and Latin American Law. Topics include: the history of the production and distribution of law books; catalogs and reference books; philosophy and techniques of collecting; and acquiring books, manuscripts, and ephemera in the antiquarian book trade. This year the course will take place at Yale’s Lillian Goldman Law Library, taking advantage of the premier collections available in the Paskus-Danziger Rare Book Room. For more information:

For a full course schedule, additional course descriptions, and our online course application, be sure to visit the RBS website at http://rarebookschool.org/.


Kind regards,

Emma Whittington
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Emma Whittington
Programs Assistant
Rare Book School