As I am assuming most of you know, Terry Belanger, the founder and director of Rare Book School, was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship this week. I heard the good news as soon as I arrived at work on Tuesday and was very excited to read about it on the RBS website.

Rare Book School has received many well-deserved honors this year. In June RBS received an IMLS grant to fund 50 scholarships for the upcoming year. So, if you have never been to Charlottesville, would like to learn about rare books and the book arts, and want to meet the “genius in residence”, you should consider applying for a scholarship. The application deadline is October 1.

And, since I am writing about RBS, I would also like to thank everyone there for helping me have an enjoyable and educational time in Charlottesville last March and the previous August. In the better-late-than-never category, I hope to finish posting my March dispatches to this blog soon.

I had hoped to double-post my RBS dispatches, but the server for this weblog has been down quite frequently, especially late at night and early in the morning — the only times I have to post at the moment. The people at the Berkman Center are working very hard to maintain the server, and with any luck, it should be more stable soon. Until then, check The Playful Antiquarian or Paper Clips. If I am not blogging here, I am probably blogging somewhere else :-)

Inside the house, we were led from room to room at a quick clip by a very knowledgeable and articulate guide. Sadly, it was difficult to listen to the tour guide and observe the displays and items in the room, and no time was given just to look at individual rooms without the guide speaking.

Unsurprisingly, my travel companion and I were disappointed,especially, about being rushed out the library/bookroom. Time constraints also prevented people in our group from asking many questions, which was sad since everyone, including the children, asked intelligent, thoughtful questions.

I took obligatory photos of the famous West Front and of the south pavilion, where Jefferson lived alone and later with his wife, Martha, while the main house was being built. I wanted to upload them to my other weblog, but I cannot seem to access it at the moment. When the server is accessible again, I will share my photos. I am a mediocre (at best) photographer, so please do not expect much.

On a final note, as the RBS travel and housing guide mentions, if you pay for one adult admission ticket with a $20 bill, you will receive a crisp $2 bill as a bit of a souvenir. It was a delightful discovery for me. Nifty and clever.

I cannot believe that I am blogging from RBS. I debated about bringing my laptop, as my coursework will not require it and the travel and housing guide suggested that in-room Internet connectivity would not bepossible for RBS attendees, but I checked the Conference Services FAQ page before departing this morning and discovered that active Ethernet ports are provided for summer conference housing occupants. So, with the last minute addition of a network cable, I am now online.

I am happy that I arrived safely and somewhat soundly. There were some minor bumps along the way (like developing a sudden case of sinusitis, nearly missing my plane out of Logan, and accidentally wandering out of the airport in Philadelphia while trying to find the connecting shuttle bus), but overall, it was a pleasant trip. My RBS alumni co-workers had commented that the Charlottesville-Albermarle Airport was cute and quaint. To me, it seemed like most of the small Southern airports I have known. As I walked to the baggage claim area, I had a strong sense of deja vu — a sense of familiarity that was both comforting and disquieting. I almost expected my family to emerge from the throng of people waiting for loved ones.

Since RBS events do not start until tomorrow evening, there is not much to report. Today, I settled in, going on a brief excursion with one of my classmates to the
Harris-Teeter at the Barracks Road Shopping Center for provisions. Tomorrow morning, we plan to visit Monticello before registration, the opening dinner, and orientation.

If I have time, I also hope to take a campus tour before RBS is officially underway. The campus (at least, the little that I have seen of it) is quite beautiful and lush, confirming my belief that the campuses of Northern schools cannot compare with those of Southern colleges and universities … but as an alumna of a Southern state university, I am a bit biased.

It is an easy book to disappear into — well-written, witty, and logical in a way that only reference books can be. When I read it, I feel as if I am at a party where the guests are all book collectors, dealers, and librarians and everyone is making droll remarks about bookbinding, paper, and the eccentricities of the rare book world. And while I cannot engage in the repartee, I am delighted to observe and listen to the other conversations.

On this most recent reading, I thought that I was beginning to get a feel for the tongue-in-cheek cleverness of Carter’s unique dictionary. I caught myself musing that it would be very clever and Carter-esque to add a book label or bookplate to one of the front endpapers of my copy, reading: “This is a book label” [or bookplate, if it was a bookplate, of course] . . . But, now that I have bothered to record this fleeting thought in a post, it does not seem so clever after all.

* Note: Check out the WorldCat link. Although certain online megastores with snazzy websites have copies of this book for you to purchase, I am encouraging you to support a local academic or public library, instead. (Or, if you would prefer to have your own copy, try the publisher, first).

Today I was checking my e-mail inbox for snow-related cancellations, and I was surprised and a little embarrassed to see my name in the list of Davis Scholars on both the ExLibris listserv and SHARP-L. Most people, I suppose, take great pride in such things; I feel honored (and happy) but terribly self-conscious about it.

At any rate, this means that next August (unlike last August) I will be in Charlottesville (most likely) for the Introduction to Descriptive Bibliography (aka DesBib) course. Maybe, while I am on vacation this month, I will start re-reading the texts for the course.

[By the way, there are many new courses listed this year for RBS: Donors and Libraries (with Susan M. Allen and William P. Barlow Jr.), History of European Handwriting (with Nicolas Barker), Type, Lettering, and Calligraphy, 1830-1940 (with James Mosley), and Seminar in Book Illustration Processes (with Terry Belanger). See the online course bulletin or the mailing list links above for more information.]

Sadly, this was the week I was supposed to be at RBS for the well known course, Introduction to Descriptive Bibliography (or DesBib, as RBS alums refer to it). Unfortunately, I am young and poor and had to choose between taking a course at Simmons and making some progress towards an MLS or one week of intense study and rare book fun at RBS. Oh well, I will be there next year, definitely. For now, thanks to NPR, I can experience RBS vicariously but with a full night’s sleep and an additional year to finish the pre-course reading.