Emory University Library’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archive and Rose Book Library Assignments Portal
A content-rich site that includes suggestions for using the archive for a variety of assignments, including poetry drafts, the analysis of artists’ books, visual analysis, textual analysis, primary source annotation, exhibition catalogue essays, critical editions, and more.
WVU Libraries
Old Books, New Pedagogy: Special Collections and Archives in the Curriculum at Wesleyan University.
Special Collections & Archives Teaching Page, Wesleyan University
A summary of pedagogical projects relying on the holdings in the Rare Book Room in the Olin Library at Wesleyan University. Current courses with projects involving the archive include Exploring the Cosmos; Issues in Contemporary Historiography; Medieval Art and Architecture; Typography; Media Revolutions: Color Television and the Humanities in the 1960s and 1970s; Introduction to Environmental Studies; and The Black Sixties: From Civil Rights to Black Power.
The Martha Ballard Diary Website
Martha Ballard was an 18th-century American midwife, whose diary opens up a wealth of information regarding medical and social practices in the period. The website includes many useful elements: a History Toolkit (includes links to how to read probate records, how to read a graveyard, how to read a will, how to read 18 th C writing); online transcription exercises in which students are given a sample of Ballard’s handwriting asked to provide a line-by-line transcription; and scans of Ballard’s diary, with a magnifying glass (which can be used to study the diary in detail) and links on decoding the diary (including an analysis of her abbreviations, etc.)
University of Virginia Rare Book School
Arguably the most famous and influential rare book school in the United States. RBS sponsors a number of courses throughout the year, on bookbinding, book design, typography, book collecting, book history, illustration and printing, and manuscript analysis. Many of their courses include extensive reading lists, and often annotated bibliographies. The website also include links to other rare book schools, colloquia, etc. and documenting the recent interest in this field (UCLA, Texas A & M, and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have all established programs in the field since 2000).
The Corvey Project at Sheffield Hallam University
Adopt-an-Author is a subset of the Corvey Project, in which advanced undergraduates at Sheffield Hallam choose a little-known text from the University archives. The students then engage in research on the text ad the author, and write a series of essays: biographical essay on the author, a synopsis of the text, an account of contemporary response to the text, and an analysis of the text within the literature of the period. The essays are then published online, at the “Corinne” link of the Corvey Project.
Publisher's Bindings Online 1815-1930: The Art of Books
A generally useful website on 19 th-Century American book culture. The link called “Binding through the Decades” provides a very helpful decade by decade analysis of bookbinding in the U.S. with many graphics. The pedagogical materials are geared towards grades 4 through 12, although some may be adapted to college level work.
Colorado College's Minor Program in the Book
Beauty for Commerce: Publishers’ Bindings, 1830-1910.
University of Rochester. River Campus Libraries.
As the website notes, “This exhibit chronicles the growth of English and American publishers' binding from its infancy in the 1830s to its decline in the early 20th century. Highlighted are the distinct changes in design that reflected not only technical innovations in the means of book production and decoration but shifting social and cultural trends as well. Viewed as a group, publishers' bindings represent a revolution in the history of the book. Viewed individually, each binding offers an often gilded window to the fashion of its day.”
Unseen Hands: Women Printers, Binders and Book Designers.
Princeton University Library.
An exhibition about women in the book trades from the fifteenth century to the present.
Under the Covers: The Hidden Art of Endpapers: Salem Athenaeum.
An exhibition that showcases the variety and history of endpapers, which are the sheets of paper at the front and back of a book.
Judging a Book by its Cover: Gold-Stamped Publishers' Bindings of the 19th Century.
Columbia University Libraries.
An exhibit of English and American bookbinding, featuring classical motifs, coats of arms, the Wild West, travel books, and more.
Decorated and Decorative Paper Collection
University of Washington.
A reference site with information to identify paper patterns, along with information on the creation of paper patterns, and a brief bibliography.