The AbeBooks’ Book Collecting Guide offers a basic introduction to book collecting, but this topic is very broad and you can never have enough knowledge. If you have read through our pages, and browsed all the books on this subject you can find, you should consider attending a book collecting seminar or course. Here is a list of several different classes offered around the world.
North America
The UCLA Department of Information Studies puts together a series of weeklong courses on various rare book topics such as cataloguing, preservation stewardship of library collections, processes of illustration to 1900, and many more. Admission requires a statement of purpose and you may be required to submit qualifications or curriculum vitae before being accepted.
Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar
For more than 30 years the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar has been taught by a group of booksellers, curators, and professors looking teach the intricacies of bookselling to bibliophiles of all levels of experience, from those just beginning to collect books to the seasoned lifelong bookseller. AbeBooks offers an annual scholarship to this seminar open to anyone with an active seller or buyer account on AbeBooks.
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
The Palmer School of Library and Information Science offers a 36-credit Master of Science in Library and Information Science program with an opportunity to specialize in Rare Books and Special Collections. The Rare Books and Special Collections concentration is offered in Manhattan at the Palmer School facilities at New York University�s Bobst Library. Other concentrations and certificate programs are also offered.
The Rare Book School (RBS) has called the University of Virginia in home since 1992. Each summer the school offers a large number of weeklong courses at the Charlottesville campus. Additional course are occasionally held in the autumn and winter in satellite locations such as New York City, Washington D.C. and Baltimore. Tuition is around $1100-1200 plus accommodation.
Europe
The London Rare Books School (LRBS) comes together each summer for a series of five-day intensive courses on a variety of book-related subjects at the University of London. The courses are taught by internationally renowned scholars associated with the university’s Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies, using the unrivalled library and museum resources of London, including the British Library, the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the University of London Research Library Services. Classes are restricted to 12 students, application forms can be downloaded from the LRBS website.
Held in various cities around Europe (Venice in 2011, Wolfenb�ttel 2010, Thessaloniki 2009) and designed by the University of the Arts London, this course aims to help in identifying and recording bookbinding structures for conservation and cataloguing.
Montefiascone is a medieval walled Italian city located about half way between Rome and Siena. Each summer, conservators, archivists, art historians, librarians and others interested in the history and the structure of the book meet to participate in courses held within the city walls. The classes are put together by a non-profit organization dedicating to saving the virtually derelict library of the Seminario Barbarigo.
Australia and New Zealand
Australasian Rare Book Summer School
The Australasian Rare Book Summer School is an annual event held alternately in New Zealand in odd years and Melbourne in even years, each year offering a tantalising mix of practical and theoretical subjects. The university or organization holding the event changes each year so consult your local institution for details. It has been announced that in 2013 the University of Otago in Dunedin will be hosting the Australasian Rare Book (Summer) School. At the time of writing no website existed but Dr Donald Kerr, Special Collections Librarian at the University of Otago can offer details.
If you run an annual class, seminar or school dedicated to book collecting or rare book study and would like to list information on this page please send an email with full details to media@abebooks.com