RBMS Newsletter - No. 35 / Fall 2001

RBMS Newsletter is a publication of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611, 312-944-6780. Co-Editors: Daren Callahan, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901, 618-453-7681, dcallaha@lib.siu.edu; Manon Théroux, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520-8240, 203-432-8376, manon.theroux@yale.edu. Asst. Ed.: Jeffrey Makala, Olin Library, Wesleyan University, 860-685-3863, jmakala @wesleyan.edu. Typesetting and layout done by Daren Callahan. The type is True Type® Times New Roman and Lucida. Manufactured in the USA. RBMS Chair: Suzy Taraba, Olin Library, Wesleyan University, 860-685-3375, staraba@wesleyan.edu

©American Library Association, 2001
ISSN 0743-1481 (paper)
ISSN 1098-4291 (electronic)

CONTENTS

From the Chair

As I write this, the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington are barely two weeks in the past and the painful memories are still fresh. By now, most of the country has returned to work and our professional concerns are coming back to the forefront of our daily routines. Like many, I am trying to block out the horror of the attacks and instead reflect on the importance of community and human connection in all aspects of our lives.

As a professional organization, RBMS is primarily a community of people working together toward common goals. All of us belong to a variety of different communities: families, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and professional, academic, bibliophilic, local, religious, and social groups. The list is extensive and it expands with further reflection. Each of these communities has multiple purposes and RBMS is no exception.

Our mission statement says that RBMS "plays a leading role in the local, national, and international special collections communities. It strives to represent and promote the interests of librarians, curators, and other specialists concerned with ... special collections ... RBMS works to prepare special collections libraries and librarians to better serve the needs of users by creating opportunities for professional growth in special collections librarianship." What's unstated here is the role that our fellow RBMS members play in our daily lives: the opportunities for friendship, collegiality, professional advice, collaboration, and comfort in times of personal or professional need. These often hidden benefits of organizational membership can surprise us with support when we most need it. The spirit of community in RBMS is as precious and important as the professional work that we do. We must work together to make our community as inclusive as possible and to ensure that all RBMS members and potential members feel welcome and supported, regardless of levels of experience, types of libraries, or any of the other differences that can divide us. Equally important, we must reach out to other communities and work together for the common good.

As always, RBMS is a busy organization with exciting projects underway on many fronts. Our 42nd annual Preconference in San Francisco was superb, both intellectually and in terms of arrangements. Planning is proceeding apace for the 43rd Preconference and the 2002 RBMS program at Annual Conference in Atlanta next June. At the upcoming Midwinter Meeting in New Orleans, expect to see our new section brochure and to participate in hearings on revisions to our guidelines regarding theft in libraries and our guidelines for ethical conduct. Most of all, plan to be a part of the special community that we know as RBMS.

-- Suzy Taraba

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2002 RBMS Preconference

The 43rd RBMS Preconference will take place June 11-14, 2002 in Atlanta, Georgia. Entitled "New Occasions, New Duties: Changing Roles and Expectations in Special Collections," the Preconference will examine the different aspects and implications of change and show ways in which special collections librarians can take advantage of change for their own use and development. Special collections librarians are undertaking new responsibilities and duties and learning new ways of doing things. They are coping with ever-changing technology and interacting with new types of users and new methodologies of research. Access is being digitized and collections are being commodifed. Potential new professionals have fewer educational and employment opportunities and are becoming more difficult to recruit. Special collections must now compete harder for the financial and institutional commitment that they have so long enjoyed. The Preconference will address these many challenging issues through a combination of plenary sessions, short papers, and seminars.

The Preconference hotel will be the Georgian Terrace, a landmark of southern style and hospitality. The hotel, built in 1911, is located on Atlanta's famous Peachtree Street. It carries the distinction of being the most prestigious hotel in Atlanta listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is known worldwide for having hosted the premier party of Gone With the Wind in 1939. A dorm option will also be available. A portion of the Preconference will take place at Emory University. Attendees will also have the opportunity to visit the University of Georgia in Athens, the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum, and the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site.

Registration fees will be $195 for ACRL members and $230 for non-members. A printed brochure and registration form will be mailed to members in March 2002. Additional information about the Preconference will be available on the RBMS website. Questions may be sent to the program chair, Nora Quinlan (nora@nova.edu), or the local arrangements co-chairs, Steve Enniss (librse@emory.edu) and Laura Micham (lmicham@emory.edu).

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RBM News

The latest issue of RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage features three of the plenary addresses delivered at last summer's RBMS Preconference and one of the papers given during the ARL symposium held at Brown University in late June, "Building on Strength: Developing an ARL Agenda for Special Collections." The authors and titles of the individual pieces are: Stephen Enniss, "In the Author's Hand: Artifacts of Origin and 20th Century Reading Practice"; Libbie Rifkin, "Association/Value: Creative Collaborations in the Library"; Henry Lowood, "The Hard Work of Software History"; and Robert L. Byrd, "One Day ... It Will Be Otherwise: Changing the Reputation and Reality of Special Collections." Subscriptions to RBM are available from the ACRL website (http://www.ala.org/acrl/rbmltxt.html) at $35.00/year.

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RBMS Midwinter Meeting Schedule

New Orleans, January 18-21, 2002

This is the schedule RBMS has requested. Check the final conference schedule for changes. 

FRIDAY, January 18

2:00-5:30p          Bibliographic Standards, Thesaurus Subcommittee
        
8:00-10:00p         Committee to Revise Standards for Ethical Conduct
                    (Ad Hoc) and hearing


SATURDAY, January 19

8:30-11:00a         2002 Preconference Program Planning
                    Membership and Professional Development
    
8:30a-12:30p        Bibliographic Standards I
                    Exhibition Awards I (Closed)

11:30a-12:30p       2003 Preconference Program Planning
                    Nominating (Closed)
                    2002 Conference Program Planning
        
2:00-4:00p          Budget and Development
                    Publications
                    Seminars
                    
8:00-10:00p         Hearing on revisions to Guidelines Regarding Thefts
                    in Libraries


SUNDAY, January 20

8:30-11:00a         Bibliographic Standards II
                    Conference Development
                    Curators and Conservators Discussion   
                    Exhibition Awards II
        
9:30a-11:00a        2003 Conference Program Planning

9:30a-12:30a        RBM Editorial Board

11:30a-12:30p       MARC for Special Collections Discussion

2:00-4:00p          Manuscripts and Other Formats Discussion
                    Public Services Discussion
                    Security
    
4:30-5:30p          Information Exchange


MONDAY,  January 21

8:30-11:00a	        Executive

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Committee News

Bibliographic Standards

The Bibliographic Standards Committee is working studiously on a revision of Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Books (DCRB). The groundwork for revision has been laid, including the formation of a subcommittee to develop a draft of general principles governing both the cataloging of rare materials and the revision process itself. Anyone with comments or criticisms to make on the current edition of DCRB is invited to communicate directly with the committee chair, Deborah J. Leslie (djleslie@folger.edu).

The committee's thesaurus editorial team, headed by Bruce Tabb, is now working on web-based electronic publication of the six RBMS thesauri. The thesauri are used in special collections cataloging to provide access to materials by genre, form, and various physical characteristics, and they have long been available in printed form only. The group is working out a structure that will provide the online databases with true thesaurus functionality.

The committee is hoping to offer one or two seminars at the upcoming 2002 Preconference in Atlanta. The chair would like to remind everyone that visitors are welcome to attend and participate in the committee's meetings during the upcoming Midwinter Meeting in New Orleans.

Conference Development

Under the able leadership of Nora Quinlan, the Conference Development Committee has established firm commitments for RBMS Preconference locations for the next three years: June 11-14, 2002 (Atlanta, Georgia); June 17-20, 2003 (Toronto, Canada); and 2004 (New Haven, Connecticut).

The committee and the section owe Quinlan a special vote of thanks for her active leadership during the last several years. She developed and continues to maintain the committee's web pages, providing easy access to a wealth of information about RBMS Preconferences, including evaluation statistics, a list of previous Preconference locations and themes, and a record of publications resulting from Preconferences. The site also provides access to the Preconference Program Planning Manual (http://www.nova.edu/library/cdc/cdc.manual.htm), an essential tool for those planning and hosting Preconferences.

This year, Elaine Smyth and Eric Holzenberg became co-chairs of the committee following the Annual Conference in San Francisco. Their immediate plans for the committee include: continuing to monitor the Preconference process and update the manual as needed and working with other relevant RBMS committees to explore venues other than the Preconference (such as regional library conferences or the ACRL national conference) at which RBMS might have a programming presence or encourage its members' participation.

Curators and Conservators

The Curators and Conservators Discussion Group meeting in San Francisco during the Annual Conference was attended by fourteen people. The first topic concerned online circulation practices in special collections. Attendees described local practices in the use of straps and strips to link and attach barcodes to artifactual materials. Also discussed were the special needs of our reading rooms in order to track the circulation of non-book items and multi-volume texts; online systems designed to track materials routed to other library units or on loan; and coping with system migration issues when new software is implemented.

The second topic of discussion was the care and handling of materials in the reading room. Participants shared information about supplies used, local policies for particular types of items, and purchasing practices.

The third topic was photocopying rare materials. Participants compared makes and models of overhead scanners used for quick copy. Also discussed were use practices, whether or not copy service was provided on demand, the level of staff trained to operate the scanner, and charges assessed (between 15¢ and 40¢ per page). Some libraries produce scanned copies on disk for patrons and reported several issues that arise when they produce "clean" copies. Operators often modify scanned or digitized images to improve legibility. Participants suggested that libraries should consider issuing a disclaimer when providing copies such as: "This image may have been altered from its original state."

Toward the end of our discussion, several participants voiced concerns about how libraries are actively raising appreciation for their collections by advertising holdings through digital libraries, publications, and exhibitions. One preservation consequence of increased access to the collections is increased use. The group acknowledged that an increase in use will require us to devote even more of our resources to the preservation of rare and fragile material.

Exhibition Awards

The Exhibition Awards Committee presented the Katharine Kyes Leab & Daniel J. Leab American Book Prices Current Exhibition Awards for 2001 at a ceremony at the ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco. Outgoing chair Diane Shaw, the featured speaker, discussed the history of the awards and changes in the categories, as well as the merits of the winning and commended submissions for 2001. This was the first year that the committee gave an award in the newly created Division 4 (brochures) and the first that it commended electronic exhibitions (as part of its three-year pilot project to evaluate electronic exhibitions). Winning and commended submissions were announced in the Spring 2001 RBMS Newsletter. All printed catalogs and brochures entered in the competition were available for perusal at the RBMS Preconference.

At its business meeting, the committee reviewed pertinent documents available on the RBMS website. All documents have now been revised to reflect current award divisions and committee practice. Most notably, there are now separate evaluation criteria for catalogs and brochures and a new online entry form for the printed categories. The committee hopes that these will facilitate the entry process for submitting institutions.

Manuscripts and Other Formats

The Manuscripts and Other Formats Discussion Group meeting in San Francisco was co-chaired by Rebecca Johnson Melvin and Timothy D. Murray. After members shared news of recent acquisitions, exhibitions, and grants, Charlotte Brown led the main discussion topic: selection for digital conversion in academic libraries. The group also discussed developing graduate assistantships, fellowships, and internship programs as an effective means of assisting with processing manuscript and archival backlogs. Such programs also help foster positive relationships with faculty and have helped recruit new people into the profession. Participants noted the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections's new free gateway to manuscript records in the OCLC bibliographic database (http://lcweb.loc.gov/coll/nucmc/nucmc.html) and discussed options for handling and describing printed material in manuscript and archival collections. Finally, the group explored two ideas for future programs: strategies and sources for locating literary manuscripts and partnering for development.

MARC for Special Collections

Over thirty people attended a rousing meeting of the MARC for Special Collections Discussion Group during last summer's Annual Conference. The first topic of discussion was productivity expectations and quotas for rare book catalogers. Not surprisingly, we discovered a wide range of expectations that were influenced by such factors as: the type of materials being cataloged, the percentage of original cataloging being performed, the extent of authority work performed, whether the position was grant-funded or permanent, whether the cataloger had other duties, such as committee work, and whether the position was unionized. The number of items cataloged annually ranged from 450 to 1500, with 750 to 1000 titles per year being the most common number mentioned. Also, we learned that many institutions do not have any formal expectations or quotas.

Subsequent topics discussed included options for recording binding information in MARC records and policies regarding the creation of analytics. We discovered that many special collection libraries have a tradition of creating analytics for parts of serials and anthologies, while others rely solely on published indexes and bibliographies to identify articles and contributions to larger works. The meeting ended with an unplanned but very informative discussion of the importance of having full and accurate descriptions of items for use in identifying thefts. Participants stressed that full descriptions should include not only accurate bibliographic details but also notes regarding any imperfections, provenance evidence, and plates. Another point raised was the importance of creating records for items as soon as they arrive, even if these are only temporary acquisitions records.

Please send suggestions for topics for the Midwinter Meeting to the chair, E.C. Schroeder (edwin.schroeder @yale.edu).

Membership and Professional Development

The Membership and Professional Development Committee sponsors an ongoing buddy program that matches up new RBMS members or first-time conference attendees with more experienced members of the section who can introduce them to RBMS and help them make connections with other members. If you are interested in participating in the buddy program at the upcoming ALA Midwinter Meeting in New Orleans, either as a new member or as an experienced member of the section, contact Henry Raine (henry.raine@nyu.edu).

The committee continues to sponsor Educational Opportunities: A Directory, available on the RBMS website, which provides a listing of coursework related to rare books and special collections currently offered through ALA-accredited graduate programs. Some of the committee's other initiatives include an orientation for new members and first-time attendees at each Preconference, a non-members survey, and exploring the issue of diversity in RBMS.

This past summer, for the second year in a row, scholarships were awarded to six RBMS members to subsidize attendance at the Preconference in San Francisco. Full scholarships, consisting of a registration waiver plus a $500 travel stipend, were awarded to Dennis G. Medina, University of Texas at San Antonio, and Donna E. McCrea, Pikes Peak Library District, Colorado; partial scholarships covering registration costs were awarded to Dannette Robbins Pachtner, a student at UCLA, Laurie M. Deredita, Charles E. Shain Library, Connecticut College, Hannah C. Frost, a student at the University of Texas, and Susan Fagan, Newberry Library. Funding for the scholarships came from surplus revenues generated by the 2000 Preconference. We hope that funds will be available in the future to continue to support this important program, which has already benefited a number of RBMS members who otherwise would have been unable to attend the Preconference.

Public Services

The Public Services Discussion Group had a typically lively and well-attended meeting in San Francisco. The main topic under discussion was "The Feng Shui of the Reading Room." Several participants brought reading room floor plans to share. We talked about the pros and cons of having the reference area separate from the reading room proper; the difficulties of maintaining sight lines across the tables and the usefulness of security cameras; the trickiness of managing workflow around various physical (and administrative) obstacles; readers' expectations that library tables be wired for laptops and the beginnings of wireless possibilities; the goal of accommodating patrons, research fellows in particular, with access to desirable workspaces competing with the need to safeguard materials; and more.

After the break, co-chair Rachel Howarth brought up the issue of monitoring reader response to our services. Several ideas were discussed including: "restaurant style" comment cards, what they should say, and who should read them; exit interviews; the limitations of surveying only those who come to our institutions and the possiblity of surveying different groups such as MLA or SHARP members; web-based comment forms for remote users; and the need to understand how our user groups are changing with expanded web access and web exhibitions.

Publications

The RBMS brochure is now finished and ready to be distributed. Thanks go to all the members of the committee, and especially to Christian Dupont, for their work and their patience through the process of getting it done. If you need copies, please contact the Membership and Professional Development Committee. Meanwhile, we have a designer and a preliminary cost estimate for the RBMS logo; we will try to line up funds for it and obtain some sample designs in time for ALA Midwinter.

On the RBMS website, Your Old Books continues to be the most popular item, with the Leab Exhibition Awards information and the RBMS Manual running close behind. The section's electronic discussion list is holding steady at 550 members.

Security

The Annual Conference meeting in San Francisco was the last at which Daniel J. Slive served as co-chair; he has now become the RBMS vice-chair/chair-elect. Isaac Gewirtz has agreed to take Dan's place, serving alongside continuing co-chair Anne Marie Lane. Most of the meeting was taken up with discussion of revisions to Guidelines Regarding Thefts in Libraries. A public hearing on the revisions will be held at the Midwinter Meeting in New Orleans.

Alvan Bregman has volunteered to take on the task of updating the "Incidents Regarding Theft" report, which is available on the RBMS website. The committee continues its efforts to encourage library directors to appoint library security officers who could then represent their institutions on Susan Allen's LSO electronic discussion list. At the Midwinter Meeting in New Orleans, Everett Wilkie will report on the committee's project to compile state laws regarding theft of library materials and also on the status of the library security video project.

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2001 IFLA Conference

The 2001 Conference of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, held in Boston on August 18-24, was a great success. With over 5,000 registrants, it was the largest gathering of international librarians ever held. The Standing Committee of the IFLA Section on Rare Books and Manuscripts convened two business meetings, at which chair Alice Prochaska (Yale University) and secretary/treasurer Wolfgang Undorf (Swedish Royal Library) were both re-elected for a second term. The committee devoted most of its time to planning for upcoming conferences in Glasgow (2002) and Berlin (2003). The theme in Glasgow will be cooperation among libraries, archives, and museums; the program in Berlin will focus on Eastern European rare book collections. The section newsletter has begun featuring sample institutional policy statements on conditions for loans to exhibitions. The newsletter is available on the section's website (http://www.ifla.org/VII/s18/srbm.htm) and printed copies may be requested from the co-editor, Annette Wehmeyer (annette.wehmeyer@sbb.spk-berlin.de).

The section's program at the 2001 Conference was devoted to "The History of Printing in the Americas." Rosa María Fernández de Zamora (National Library of Mexico) gave a talk on the bibliographic heritage of Mexico; Daniel J. Slive (UCLA) presented a survey of colonial Amerindian printing; and Georgia Barnhill (American Antiquarian Society) delivered a paper on the introduction and early use of lithography in the United States. In addition, all conference participants were treated to a series of fine receptions and library tours. For more details, please contact RBMS liaison Henry Snyder (hlsnyder@earthlink.net).

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Section Guidelines Revised

RBMS members are invited to submit comments on proposed revisions to two section documents: Standards for Ethical Conduct for Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Librarians, 2nd ed., and Guidelines Regarding Thefts in Libraries. Drafts of both documents will be posted on the RBMS website and public hearings will be held during the upcoming Midwinter Meeting. Laura Stalker (lstalker@huntington.org) chairs the ad hoc committee charged with revising the guidelines on ethical conduct. The Security Committee, co-chaired by Isaac Gewirtz (igewirtz@nypl.org) and Anne Marie Lane (amlane@uwyo.edu), is overseeing revision of the guidelines regarding thefts.

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2001 RBMS Preconference

The 42nd annual Rare Books and Manuscripts Section Preconference was held in San Francisco and Berkeley on June 12-15, 2001. The theme, "The Twentieth Century," provided a framework for an exploration of the challenges and opportunities we face as builders of twentieth-century research collections. The Preconference presented twelve plenary speakers, nine seminars, and a four-hour workshop on the current state of Encoded Archival Description.

Plenary sessions addressed such topics as: collecting the history of computer science and technology; providing access to "born digital" information; changes in the patterns of literary collecting; the challenge of maintaining access to multiple formats and media; the preservation of moving image and sound archives; managing intellectual property and copyright; the impact of digitization on special collections; and the relationship between twentieth-century collection building and scholarship.

Seminars provided lively forums for discussing such issues as: online manuscript finding aids; the experience of outsourcing the OPAC; oral history programs and collections; ethical and legal issues involved in donor relations; and subject access to Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts.

The Preconference was based at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco and featured a day at the University of California, Berkeley. The Preconference opened on Tuesday evening with a reception at the Fairmont Hotel sponsored by Octavo. Wednesday evening's reception was hosted by the San Francisco Public Library and sponsored by the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America. On Thursday evening we closed the day on the Berkeley campus with a reception at the UC Berkeley Faculty Club sponsored by the Bancroft Library, Stanford University Library, the Friends of the Bancroft Library, and the Gleeson Library Associates of the University of San Francisco.

There were 259 registered attendees at the 2001 Preconference. A total of 165 attendees (64%) returned evaluation forms, most of which were glowing. Ninety-eight percent of the evaluators gave the Preconference an overall "very good" or "good" rating. Participants also gave high marks to the Fairmont Hotel, which received an 88% "satisfactory" rating, and to the local arrangements team, which earned wild praise. All the speakers, planners, and volunteers who made the Preconference such an enjoyable and stimulating success deserve our appreciation.

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Executive Committee 2001-2002

Suzy Taraba, Chair
Special Collections and Archives
Olin Library
Wesleyan University
860-685-3375; Fax: 860-685-2661
staraba@wesleyan.edu

Daniel J. Slive, Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect
Young Research Library
UCLA
310-206-0568; Fax: 310-206-1864
djslive@library.ucla.edu

Mark Dimunation, Past Chair
Rare Book and Special Collections Division
The Library of Congress
202-707-2025; Fax: 202-707-4142
mdim@loc.gov

Cynthia A. Burgess, Secretary
Armstrong Browning Library
Baylor University
254-710-4959; Fax: 254-710-3552
Cyndie_Burgess@Baylor.edu

Jean Ashton, Member-at-Large
Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Butler Library
Columbia University
212-854-2232; Fax: 212-854-1365
ashton@columbia.edu

Mary Lacy, Member-at-Large
Manuscript Division
The Library of Congress
202-707-8799; Fax: 202-707-6336
mlac@loc.gov

Katherine Reagan, Member-at-Large
Rare and Manuscript Collections
Carl A. Kroch Library
Cornell University
607-255-3530; Fax: 607-255-9524
KR33@cornell.edu

The complete RBMS committee roster for 2001-2002 is available on the website at http://www.rbms.info/committee_roster.shtml.

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Transitions

Priscilla Anderson has joined the Weissman Preservation Center at Harvard University as a conservator. The University of Kansas has appointed Jean Bischoff project archivist in the Dole Collection. Matt Blessing is now the head of special collections and university archives at Marquette University Libraries. Ruth Bryan has been named archivist and manuscript cataloger at the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University. The new curator of the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library at the University of Alabama is Clark Center. Amy L. Cooper has been appointed special collections librarian at the University of Iowa Libraries. Ellen Crosby has resigned her position as head of cataloging at the Indiana Historical Society. Jonathan Dembo has been named head of special collections at the J.Y. Joyner Library at East Carolina University. Jennifer Evans has joined the Folger Shakespeare Library as an ESTC cataloger. Karen Glynn is now visual materials archivist in the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University. Benjamin Griffin is now an ESTC cataloger at the Folger Shakespeare Library. The director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Werner Gundersheimer, will be retiring in June 2002. David Horn is now head librarian of Archives and Manuscripts in the Burns Library at Boston College. Vassar College has named Julie Kemper as its new special collections librarian. Steven Koblik has been appointed president of the Huntington Library and Art Gallery. The University of Miami's Otto G. Richter Library has named Craig Likness the head of archives and special collections. Jeffrey Makala is now assistant university archivist and reference librarian in Special Collections and Archives at Wesleyan University. Robert Sidney Martin has been appointed director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The new director of the DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University is Russell L. Martin. Hope Mayo has been appointed Philip Hofer Curator of Printing and Graphic Arts at the Houghton Library at Harvard University. Joshua McKim has been named digital encoding archivist in the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University. Breon Mitchell is the new director of the Lilly Library at Indiana University, Bloomington. The California Historical Society has appointed Mary L. Morganti as director of research collections. The new head of special collections and university archives at Vanderbilt University is Juanita G. Murray. The University of Rochester has named Richard Peek as the director of its Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation Division. Alice Prochaska, former director of special collections at the British Library, is now the university librarian at Yale University. Christopher Prom has been named assistant university archivist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Rare book cataloger Patrick J. Russell Jr. has retired after 26 years at the Bancroft Library of the University of California-Berkeley. Margaret Tufts Tenney is the new head of the reading room at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Kimberly Tully has joined the Folger Shakespeare Library as an ESTC cataloger. Julia Walworth has been named Fellow Librarian at Merton College, University of Oxford.

We note with regret the recent deaths of: George Abrams, type designer and bibliophile; Frederick B. Adams Jr., former director of the Pierpont Morgan Library; Debra E. Bernhardt, former head of the Wagner Labor Archives and the Tamiment Institute Library at NYU; Ann Bowden, former associate director of the Austin Public Library and first librarian of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin; Will Carter, printer, typographer, and founder of the Rampant Lions Press; John R.T. Ettlinger, emeritus professor of the School of Library and Information Studies at Dalhousie University, former assistant librarian for special collections at Columbia University, and former curator of the Annmary Brown Memorial at Brown University Library; Philip Gaskell, bibliographer and former librarian at Trinity College, University of Cambridge; Heather M. Lloyd, former associate professor and head of special collections and university archives at the Edmon Low Library of Oklahoma State University; Lawrence Clark Powell, founding dean of the UCLA School of Library Service, former chief librarian at UCLA, and former director of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library; Louis Henry Silverstein, former rare book cataloger and curator of the Arts of the Book Collection at Yale University and a consultant to the Art of the Book Collection at the Phoenix Public Library; Theodore Wilentz, former co-owner of the Eighth Street Bookshop in New York City.