Course Information

Instructors: John J. Garcia

Location: Los Angeles

Format: In-person

Dates: August 3–7, 2026

Tuition: $1200

Course Description

This seminar provides the foundations for a critical analysis of “the book” in American society and culture, from the arrival of moveable type in North America to the immense world of nineteenth-century print culture. We will examine and discuss a variety of print artifacts to understand how early American books influenced (and were influenced by) politics, commerce, technology, religion, and literary and popular culture. The seminar centers the experiences and voices of groups who struggled to find their way into print, especially Indigenous peoples, Latina/os, and African Americans. Likewise, participants will learn how marginalized groups were always present in the material practices of early American printing, illustrating, papermaking, binding, and bookselling. Geographical coverage extends beyond the territories that became the United States to include the Caribbean, the Pacific, and portions of Latin America. Hands-on sessions with primary sources will explore ways that bibliographical analysis lends itself to richer interpretations of American history and culture. We will also give time to collecting Americana and discuss how collections are worthy objects of study in their own right. 

We will take a trip to the Huntington Library to examine early American books in that important collection. Participants will be exposed to the rich collections of the American Antiquarian Society, the largest and most accessible repository of pre-1900 American print culture. We will also handle rare materials in the UCLA Library Special Collections such as almanacs, children’s books, bibles, ephemera, and books related to California and the American West. Graduate students, established scholars, librarians, collectors, and members of the antiquarian book trade are all encouraged to apply.

Course readings draw from recent scholarship on early American books and print culture (Gruesz, Stein, Loughran, Spires, Dinius, Round, and others). Participants are encouraged to peruse in advance the first three volumes in the History of the Book in Americaseries published by UNC Press: The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World (2007), An Extensive Republic: Print, Culture, and Society in the New Nation, 1790-1840 (2010), and The Industrial Book: 1840-1880 (2009). Essays from these volumes will be on the list of required readings. 

Participants will receive a digital course packet with PDFs of assigned readings, reference guides compiled for further study, and images of archival materials from major institutional collections.

Course Information

Instructors: Gawain Weaver

Location: Los Angeles

Dates: August 3–7, 2026

Tuition: $1325 ($1200 tuition + $125 in laboratory fees)

Course Description

This 5-day workshop is an introduction to the history, identification, and preservation of photographic materials. Participants will acquire hands-on identification skills and learn the essential principles of photograph preservation. Using handheld 60x microscopes and a large set of photographic and photomechanical samples, they will learn how a variety of processes were created, why they look the way they do, and how they deteriorate. Knowledge about photographic processes is essential to their preservation and a better appreciation of the aesthetics and history of photographic prints. The workshop will also include a visit to a Library and a lab session in which each student will make their own salted paper print.

Preservation topics include enclosures, handling guidelines, environmental monitoring, the effects of temperature and relative humidity on collections, and the importance of cold storage for certain photographic materials.

Processes examined in detail include but are not limited to the following: daguerreotype, albumen, collodion and gelatin printing-out processes (POP), matte collodion, gelatin silver, photogravure, offset litho, letterpress halftone, collotype, chromogenic color, inkjet, and dye sublimation. Group ID sessions, using a digital microscope and screen projection, will allow participants to practice their identification skills in a guided setting,

A workshop notebook is provided for every participant. The Basic Photographic Sample Set, consisting of 18 identified photographic and photomechanical processes, are available on-site for $125. This sample set is intended for reference and further study and is not used during the workshop.

Course Information

Instructor: Joshua Teplitsky

Location: UCLA / Los Angeles

Mode: In-person

Dates: August 3–7, 2026

Tuition: $1200.00

Course Description

Jews are often held up as a “people of the book,” in a fashion that approaches cliché. In this course we will examine the people and their actual books, taking the example of the media of Jews as a diaspora population to explore the making and re-making of books in their historical context. Jews’ adoption and adaptation of media forms at times paralleled and at other times diverged from that of their dominant ambient cultures, and offers a valuable lens to confront transmissions of Jewish culture on its own terms as well as a prism to encounter wider media shifts in politics, culture, gender, and religion. The course will focus primary on the medieval and early modern periods, with framings from antiquity through the digital era, exploring case studies from the ancient Near East, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. The course will be conducted through readings of primary and secondary sources, but will, most importantly, revolve around the examination of material objects and their design and dimensions at the literal center of the table and the core of class discussion.

Course Information

Instructor: Vanessa Wilkie

Location: Los Angeles (Huntington Library)

Mode: In-person

Dates: August 3–7, 2026

Tuition: $1200.00

Course Description

This course is designed to teach students the skills to read various English scripts used between 1400 and 1650, with a heavy emphasis on English secretary hand.  No former paleography or non-English language training is necessary.  Participants will gain an introduction to various formats for early modern English manuscripts, like correspondence and indentures, among other forms of documents frequently encountered in archives.  We will also cover the conventions of early modern English currency, dates and calendars, common abbreviations, and numbers.  Each participant will receive a quill, ink, and handmade paper as learning to write with a quill is a quintessential part of learning to read early modern manuscripts.

Course Information

Instructor: Allie Alvis

Location: Los Angeles | UCLA

Mode: In-person

Dates: August 3–7, 2026

Tuition: $1200.00

Course Description

The most common place people encounter book history is not in the library, but through popular media – although “history” is often rather loosely applied to the chimera-like objects created to represent “old” books. Pop Bibliography is the study of the production and reception of bibliography through this media lens. In this course, we will trace the origins of frequently seen physical attributes of depictions of “old” books back to their historic sources, and extrapolate the processes of remediation, context loss, and embellishment that led to the popular concepts of what rare books and manuscripts ought to look like. We will also explore the commercialism at the core of these depictions, engaging with fandom and Bookishness as group markers that companies gain financially from cultivating. The course will wrap up with ideas and conversations about how Pop Bibliography presents new opportunities and challenges for the rare book field, both in terms of working with students and the public and increasing awareness of book history as a concept.

Participants in the course will benefit from interacting with special collections material, visiting off-site institutions, and hearing from industry professionals who have a hand in making or selecting the books that become Pop Bibliography.

Course Information

Instructor: Sarah Werner

Location: Online

Dates: August 3–7, 2026

Tuition: $1200.00

Course Description

This online course considers what might constitute a feminist approach to studying books, what the benefits of such approaches are, and how to incorporate them into our own work. 

We will center the textual object in exploring these issues, letting artifacts drive our questions rather than the actions of book makers, sellers, or collectors. Another way of putting this is that the course won’t ask who women printing books were, but rather, who determined the terms on which we engage with books. This doesn’t mean ignoring the many agents involved in book work, including the people involved in the long history of book trades, the academic field of print culture and textual editing, and the intersection of these with library practices. But it means that our work this week will be focused on generating questions about methodology rather than recovering names and histories.

We will also wrestle with the theory and practice of feminism, which has a history of different meanings for different communities, and how to develop it as an inclusive practice for our book work. If living a feminist life is, as Sara Ahmed argues, something we must return to over and over, something that we put into practice daily rather than something that stays in the classroom, how do we bring that into our spaces of book work?

Through a combination of short advance readings about bibliography and feminism, course discussions, and your own work with textual artifacts, we will explore what questions are brought to the forefront when we approach our work through a feminist framework. Participants should anticipate two concurrent and two asynchronous sessions each course day, with those sessions being scheduled to accommodate the range of US time zones; asychronous sessions could involve exercises, readings, and off-camera discussions. Discussions and exercises will also try explore different models of pedagogy in order to give participants a feel for what methodologies might suit them best. 

The course is intended to be of use to anyone researching, teaching, or acting as a custodian for rare books; although we will pay careful attention to the first centuries of western printing, since the study of those books have shaped the field of bibliography as a whole, the issues the course will consider cover all periods of book study. Participants should not expect to come out of the course having mastered a feminist history of books, but to leave with a set of tools to ask feminist questions of books.

Course Information

Instructor: Trevor Owens

Location: Los Angeles / UCLA

Mode: In-person

Dates: August 3–7, 2026

Tuition: $1200.00

Course Description

This course will take a holistic approach to digital content, technologies, standards and policies in special collections. Digital materials are an increasingly routine area of work in special collections, including, but not limited to: collection development considerations and appraisal of born digital and digitized materials; acquisition and processing of born-digital materials; planning for management and access to digital surrogates for objects; online finding aids and reference activities; and ensuring long term access to content through digital preservation work. The first and last of these—born-digital materials and digital preservation—are areas of great activity and developing standards and best practices, and the course will include an emphasis on building basic core knowledge in these areas, together with the means to track developing standards and best practices. We will also consider the role of information technology services—either within the home institution or through external partnerships or consortia—in the management of born-digital materials and preservation of both born-digital and digitized content.

During the course we will also consider the role of digitization projects and services in building special collections of the future. Starting from the obvious premise that building collections of digital surrogates has value in their own right, we will consider the variety of options available for building services upon those digitized collections, including strategies for providing access and reference services, contextualizing digital content and enriching the collection through the participation of our users, and the increasingly important role of research in the digital humanities.

Course Information

Instructor: Jen Johnson & Brad Johnson

Location: Claremont | Hosted by The Claremont Colleges Library 

Mode: In-person

Dates: August 3–7, 2026

Tuition: $1200.00

Course Description

Rare books, archives, vernacular photography, born digital collections, audio recordings, maps, and ephemera are just some of the materials passing through the hands of collectors, archivists and antiquarian booksellers today. This week-long course will explore how professionals navigate various facets of the modern collecting world, and include specialist collectors, booksellers, special collections librarians, and archivists who will share their expertise and broaden our conversations. 

We will visit local special collections libraries and spend an afternoon at our brick-and-mortar shop in Covina, where students will have real-world exposure to the inner workings of an antiquarian book shop. Some of the topics will include new trends in collecting, finding and evaluating books and archives for purchase and resale, and describing and preserving new material. The course is intended for booksellers, collectors, archivists, scholars, graduate students, and anyone interested in new trends in collecting. 

Students will receive coffee and donuts in the morning. At breaks, coffee, water, soft drinks, and light refreshments will be offered. Students will receive one hour for lunch on their own.

Course Information

Instructor: Ann K. D. Myers

Location: Los Angeles, California | William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

Mode: In-person

Dates: August 10–14, 2026

Tuition: $1200.00

Course Description

Aimed at catalogers who find that their present duties include (or shortly will include) the cataloging of books in their rare materials or special collections and want to be trained in applying Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Books). Emphasis will be placed primarily on books of the hand-press era, with some consideration of 19th and 20th century books in special collections. Topics include: 

• application of codes and standards, especially DCRM(B) 
• transcription, collation, and physical description 
• concepts of edition, impression, issue, state 
• genre/form terms, relationship designators, other special files 
• copy-specific information 
• cataloging policy in institutional contexts, including provisions for reparative descriptive practices 

This course is intended for working catalogers experienced in AACR2 and/or RDA and MARC 21, and general cataloging principles and practices. No prior knowledge of early books is necessary. The goal of the course is to provide instruction and practice in each of the primary elements of the rare book catalog record, so that students will be equipped to catalog their institution’s rare books and special collections materials to national standards. Please note that this course covers printed monographs only.

Special note on RDA: instruction in this course will be on DCRM(B)—both classic (based on AACR2, as published) and RDA-compliant (as amended by the PCC Bibliographic Standard Record). Please also note that, although Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (RDA Edition) has been published, for the time being this course will continue to use DCRM(B) as the standard, until the Library of Congress and the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) have fully implemented the Official RDA toolkit.

Course Information

Instructor: Filippo Mardente

Location: Los Angeles | UCLA

Mode: In-person

Dates: August 10–14, 2026

Tuition: $1200.00

Course Description

This course explores the material and literary evolution of the Greek book and its spread in Europe following the fall of Constantinople and the invention of movable type printing. Through a historical and codicological analysis, it will consider how the paramount transition from manuscript to print influenced the preservation, the transmission and the diffusion of Greek literature and science. This course aims to provide the tools to conduct historical investigations on manuscripts and early printed books in Ancient Greek, as well as to explore and appreciate the changes that took place in the fields of literature, scholarship and typography in Italy during the Renaissance. 

The first part of the course will cover the methods of productions of the objects (the manuscript and the printed book) and the study of those material elements that assist historical analysis (paper, writing, binding). The second part will be devoted to the printing in Ancient Greek in Italy during the 15th and the early 16th centuries. After considering the pioneering works carried out in Milan and in Florence, the classes will focus on Aldus Manutius’ revolutionary editions and on the reasons of their success to the present day. Through an in-person observation of these early Greek editions, it will be analysed the textual and graphic evolution of the printed book as an object. As a conclusion, it will be proposed an overview of the most important collections of Greek books during the Renaissance.e will continue to use DCRM(B) as the standard, with reference to differences coming in the future.

Course Information

Instructor: Aaron T. Pratt

Location: Los Angeles, California

Mode: In-person

Dates: August 10–14, 2026

Tuition: $1200.00

Course Description

This introductory course is intended for students who wish to increase their understanding of the physical descriptions of printed books, especially those produced in the handpress period, as well as books printed during the industrial press period up to approx. 1900.  The course accommodates special collections librarians and catalogers, book collectors, booksellers, graduate students, scholars, bibliographers and other members of the book community who wish to gain thorough comprehension of book structures and bibliographical descriptions and to develop their ability to write their own descriptions of printed books.

The course will introduce students to the principles and concepts of descriptive bibliography and develop their ability to accurately understand and describe the format, collation, pagination, and other aspects of the physical book.  The concept of “ideal copy” will be discussed and analyzed, as will the distinction of editions, issues, states, and impressions.  Also considered will be the accurate transcription of title-page, colophon, and other internal information; the identification of paper and watermarks, type, and illustrative contents; and the treatment of other features and circumstances of printing and distribution.

Each class will involve a combination of lectures and in-class exercises, both supervised and independent (largely the examination of printed books and the writing of bibliographical descriptions for progressively complex books), as well as the consideration of published descriptive bibliographies and representative examples of books described within those published works.

Course Information

Instructor: Mario H. Ramirez

Location: Los Angeles | UCLA

Mode: In-person

Dates: August 10–14, 2026

Tuition: $1200.00

Course Description

As the landscape of special collections librarianship changes, and it looks towards incorporating more progressive and community driven approaches towards cultural heritage stewardship, students and new and seasoned professionals are compelled to shift their praxis to incorporate principles of social justice that eschew previously held notions of historical value, materiality, authenticity, and Eurocentrism. In addition to considering the fundamental undergirding's of the profession which account for policies, practices, and traditions that have contributed to the formation of special collections librarianship for the past two centuries, this course will ask the fundamental question of what the profession could and should look like in the face of growing challenges to the cultural and historical marginalization of minoritized groups in special collections settings. 

Through readings, site visits, lectures, and discussions, this course aims to challenge its participants to reflect upon their own praxis and biases as a means of critically interrogating how they frame special collections librarianship, and the definitions, practices, and terminologies that have traditionally circumscribed the profession’s ability to be inclusive and equitable. 

Participants will visit several special collections libraries in the Los Angeles area which aim to serve a diverse public, including UCLA’s Department of Special Collections, the Southern California Library, The Huntington Library, Cal State LA’s Special Collections and Archives, Center for the Study of Political Graphics, the Autry Museum of the American West, and USC’s Special Collections.

Course Information

Instructor: Marshall Weber

Location: New York | Booklyn, Inc.

Mode: In-person

Dates: August 10–14, 2026

Tuition: $1200.00

Course Description

Booklyn is located on the un-ceded land of the Munsee Lenape peoples. We ask you to join us in acknowledging the Lenape community, their elders both past and present, as well as future generations. 

This is five-day, 6 hour a day (11am–5am) workshop on-site at Booklyn, Inc., 140 58th St., Building B, 7-G, Brooklyn  

This workshop will examine recent artists’ archives, books, box sets, and zines that can be defined as primary first-person, research material and used to support teaching and instruction across university curricula and multiple disciplines.  

For four days the class will focus on granular, critical aesthetic analysis of materials from Booklyn’s collections of archives, artists’ books, ephemera, and zines, followed by discussions of access, usage, and conservation of those same materials. On the fifth day we will visit the Interference Archive at 314 7th St, Brooklyn, NY 11215, to look at their collections.  

Day 1, August 19th, Read It and Weep 

We’ll look at a selection of artists’ books that use affective, emotional, and multisensory strategies to deal with complex scientific and social issues. 

Example: https://booklyn.org/catalog/mother-archive/

Day 2, August 20th, Deal With IT 

There is a major generational shift happening in creative practice in the artists’ book field as younger artists try and deal with the massive input of data from, social media, the internet, the accelerating pace of scientific discovery and the globalization of economies and cultures. On this day we’ll look at the ascendancy of infographics and the integration of text and image in artists’ book practice. 

Example: https://booklyn.org/catalog/enshittification/

Day 3, August 21st, Shining Star for You to See 

Artists’ books provide myriad kaleidoscopic and global windows to the world, today we’ll look at the role of the artists/authors’ culture, identity, style and voice as they catalyze, and are embodied in, their artworks. 

Example: https://booklyn.org/catalog/the-book-of-five-cursed-moons/

Day 4, August 22nd, Look Back to the Future Framework 

We’ll do an overview and evaluation of the class, share our resources, and our ideas of how to move forward and look at some classic artists’ books that support (and expand upon) the concepts explored in the previous three days. We’ll also spend a moment talking about the global Art and Special Collections Library network that makes all this possible 

Example: https://booklyn.org/catalog/ten-years-of-uzbekistan-a-commemoration/

Day 5, August 23rd, Community Archives, living archives, and activist archives. 

We’ll meet at the completely amazing Interference Archive — https://interferencearchive.org/, at 314 7th St, Brooklyn, NY 11215, and I’ll ask all you librarians to search the archives for material that reflects your own lives. 

Course Information

Instructor: Jesse R. Erickson, Ph.D., MLIS

Location: New York

Mode: In-person | Hosted by the Morgan Library & Museum

Dates: August 10–14, 2026

Tuition: $1200.00

Course Description

Descriptive bibliography, analytical bibliography, and textual criticism have long been a part of the methods by which literary historians have traced the bibliographical genealogies of textual transmission for a given title or body of work. However, once retooled toward a more expansive and inclusive perspective, bibliography can be implemented in ways that can contribute to deeper understandings of Black print culture. For Black Americans in particular, bibliography has been a pathway to establishing selfhood and fostering a rich intellectual and literary tradition of resistance. Looking at the history of Black American writers, poets, scholars, publishers, and printers from a viewpoint of material culture, this course will apply bibliographical methods to the analysis of Black print culture. From Jupiter Hammon to the Street lit of today, from yesterday’s ephemera to today’s typefaces, we will begin to explore the various ways in which books and periodicals have been both racialized and racially gendered in their material facets.

Course Information

Instructor: Eira Tansey

Location: Online

Mode: Online

Dates: August 10 – August 14, 2026

Tuition: $1200.00

Course Description

Climate change is one of the greatest contemporary threats to archives. Increasingly severe disasters like hurricanes, floods, storms, and wildfires pose immediate dangers. Longer-term trends such as migration and rising sea levels may necessitate decisions concerning the geographic relocation of archives. Archivists and cultural heritage professionals, regardless of where they are located, should understand the threats related to climate change and how it impacts our work and cultural heritage institutions.     Participants in this course will: 

1. Learn about the basic science behind climate change  
2. Explore political governance challenges related to mitigation and adaptation
3. Develop personalized strategies for addressing climate grief and anxiety
4. Assess how climate change impacts their local region and institutions
5. Explore how climate change impacts archives and cultural heritage institutions, both in the short and long-term
6. Develop skills in using simple climate change data visualization and mapping tools

This week-long course will take place online between 10 AM and 3:30 PM Eastern. Participants will be expected to participate in an online class environment for two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon each day of the course. The course will involve a mix of asynchronous readings, live lectures, class discussions, and workshops using web-based climate change data visualization and mapping tools. Although the course focus is on archives, all information and cultural heritage workers are welcome. 

Are you an established expert in rare books, special collections, and print culture? Or perhaps an expert in library and information studies, critical librarianship, or data studies? CalRBS encourages course proposals on innovative topics that build on its vast array of courses focusing on rare books, special collections, and manuscripts.

CalRBS is especially interested in the following areas as they relate to rare books, galleries, libraries, archives, and museums:

• Grant Writing
• Advanced Pedagogy and Teaching
• Remote Course Programming and Design
• Space Planning and Innovative Alternatives
• Social Media
• Programming for ESL and Bilingual Constituencies
• Data Preservation
• Digital Knowledge Repatriation
• Crisis Recordkeeping
• Public Libraries and At-Risk Populations
• Sustainability Studies
• Climate Change Impacts on the Profession
• Grassroots Communities
• Archives Organization
• Reappraisal and De-Accessioning
• Digital Methods for Research and Scholarship
• Data Activism
• Collection Development for Specific Communities
• Ink and Papermaking (Maker studio and/or history of)
• Children and Young Adults and Public Libraries
• Primary sources in K-12 Education
• History, production, and publishing of children’s books
• Material, Collections, and Institutions through Indigenous and First Nation lenses
• International Librarianship, Bibliography, and Rare Books
• Disability Studies
• Feminist and Gender Studies
• Postcolonial, Decolonial and Critical Development studies
• History of small presses and independent publishing in Los Angeles/California/U.S. and beyond
• Gastronomy, cook books, and food culture
• Topic and survey courses that focus on undergraduate and high school students

Courses that focus on critical analysis, diversity, ethics, and promote justice-oriented approaches are especially welcome. In addition to these areas, we are looking for courses that fill identified gaps in the current CalRBS curriculum. While new courses can extend beyond the domain of rare books and special collections, they should contextualize rare books within a larger library and information economy, emphasizing the importance of book and print culture throughout the discipline of Information Studies.