RBMS Manual / Introduction
The roots of RBMS go back to 1948, when an ACRL University Libraries section meeting was devoted to the topic of rare books. In 1955 an ACRL Committee on Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Special Collections was formed "to promote wider understanding of the value of rare books to scholarly research and to cultural growth, [and] bring improvement to the care, use and recognition of rare books in all libraries." As part of a 1958 reorganization of ACRL, the Committee became the Rare Books Section.
From its inception, RBMS has attempted to foster communication between special collections librarians and assist in their professional development. To this end, it first held a preconference in 1959 and has held one annually every year since 1961. In September 1989 a joint conference was held with the Library Association Rare Book Group in Cambridge, England; this was in addition to the annual preconference. The section has sponsored the publication of numerous guidelines, standards, brochures, and other professional literature. It also sponsors the Exhibition Catalogues Award and a biennial award for the best article to appear in the journal Rare Books and Manuscripts Librarianship. A measure of the section's growth is the increase in its membership from 300 in 1962 to around 2,000 at present.
Additional information about the history of RBMS is found in "RBMS: An Overview," Rare Books & Manuscripts Librarianship, I (1986), 7-9; and "RBMS at 30: Growing Along with the Profession," ibid., III (1988), 3-7.
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The purpose of this manual is to support the effectiveness of the section leadership by making available information about the ACRL Rare Books and Manuscripts Section. The manual is available on the RBMS Web site.
The manual does not attempt to cover everything. For additional information, you will need to consult other ALA, ACRL, or RBMS publications such as the ALA Handbook of Organization, the ACRL Guide to Policies and Procedures, the ACRL Fiscal Policy Manual, the ACRL Standards and Accreditation Committee Policies and Procedures Manual, and the RBMS Preconference Planning Manual.
The past chair of the section is charged with updating the information in the manual once a year following the annual meeting. The updated information is sent to the section webmaster to make the changes on the Web version. The past chair will send a hard copy version to the RBMS archives after the revisions from the annual meeting have been made. The manual is maintained in machine-readable form for ease of updating. After completing the semi-annual revisions, the past chair forwards the diskette to the next past chair. Committees responsible for appendices to the manual must send revisions in machine-readable form and hard copy to the past chair as well as the section webmaster to update the manual on the Web site.