THE EDUCATIONAL AND PROFESSIONAL prerequisites for RBS courses vary. Some courses are primarily directed toward research librarians and archivists. Others are intended for academics, persons working in the antiquarian book trade, bookbinders and conservators, professional and avocational students of the history of books and printing, book collectors, and others with an interest in the subjects being treated.

THE TUITION FOR EACH FIVE-DAY COURSE is $745. Reasonably -priced hotel accommodation is readily available nearby.

FOR AN APPLICATION FORM and electronic copies of the complete brochure and the RBS Expanded Course Descriptions (ECDs), providing additional details about the courses offered and other information about RBS, visit our Web site at:

http://www.virginia.edu/oldbooks

Or write Rare Book School, 114 Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2498; fax 804/924-8824; email oldbooks@virginia.edu; or telephone 804/924-8851.

Subscribers to the H-NET may find the following Rare Book School courses to be of particular interest:

11: The History of the Book, 200 - 2000. An introductory course for those who have had little or no previous formal exposure to the subject, organized around major format and technological transitions and changes in bookmaking: from roll to codex, from manuscript to printed book, from hand- to machine-powered printing, and from printed codex to electronic and digital formats. The course will provide a framework for further reading and thought on the history of books, printing, and readership, as well as a context for later courses (at RBS or elsewhere) on specific aspects or periods of book history. It will deal primarily but not only with the Western book. Instructor: Daniel Traister.

12: Book Illustration Processes to 1890. The identification of illustration processes and techniques, including woodcut, etching, engraving, stipple, aquatint, mezzotint, lithography, wood engraving, steel engraving, process relief, collotype, photogravure, and color printing. The course will be taught almost entirely from the extensive Book Arts Press files of examples of illustration processes. As part of the course, students will make their own etchings, drypoints, and relief cuts in supervised laboratory sessions. Offered again in the June session. Instructor: Terry Belanger.

13: Implementing Encoded Archival Description. Encoded Archival Description (EAD) provides standardized machine-readable access to primary resource materials. This course is intended for archivists, librarians, and museum personnel who would like an introduction to EAD that includes a substantial hands-on component. Students will learn SGML encoding techniques in part using examples selected from among their own institution's finding aids. Topics: the context out of which EAD emerged; introduction to the use of SGML authoring tools and browsers; the conversion of existing finding aids to EAD. Instructor: Daniel Pitti.