Rare Book School

I discovered that there is a Rare Book School at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.  It has been at that location since 1992.  It offers five day courses on various topics on rare and old books.  The courses are for booksellers, book collectors, librarians, bookbinders and teachers.

The tuition for a five day course is $895.

In 2009, here are a few of the courses that are available:

• Seminar in the History of Bookbinding
• Intro to the History, Use and Collecting of Maps
• History of the Book in America
• Book Illustration Process to 1900 (this is apparently very popular and has a long waiting list)
• Rare Book Cataloguing

These are just of few of the courses that are offered that seemed interesting to me.  I'd like to attend a class but will likely not be able to at this time.

What most interested me about the School and the courses offered is that for each course there is a list of book that are required reading.  Each student must prepare for the course by reading certain books.

Here are a few of the books that are required reading by various courses:

A Short History of the Printed Word by Warren Chappell

Five Hundred Year of Printing by H. S. Steinberg

Twelve Centuries of BookBinding , 400-1600 by Paul Needham

The History of Cartography edited by Mark Monmonier

Nabokov's Butterfly & Other Stories of Great Authors and Rare Books by Rick Gekoski

To review the required reading lists go to: Required Reading Lists

I've read a couple of these books to gain a better understanding of antique and rare books.  Maybe someday I'll take a course or two.