Studying the book

As we continue to study the book and understand its place in special collections and rare book rooms,  it is important to see the results of a study.  Common-place http://www.common-place.org/ ,  a newsletter from the American Antiquarian Society http://www.americanantiquarian.org/ has four amazing articles about books including one about Harriet Beecher Stowe and Uncle Tom's Cabin entitled "Containing Multitudes: The Biography of a Book" http://www.common-place.org/interim/reviews/graber.shtml

According to the article, the author studied the various editions and printings of Uncle Tom's Cabin to understand how the book changed over time and how it was received. This is a great example of what you could do with your exhibit, on a smaller scale, of course. I bring up the article because I want you to see the relevance of studying books, objects, buildings, and other pieces of cultural and literary history. 

Daniel Traister clearly teaches us in his article entitled "The Rare Book Librarian's Day" (RBML 1:2 (Sept. 1986): 93-105) http://rbm.acrl.org/content/rbml/1/2/93.extract, that curators and librarians do not usually have the time to study materials in our own collections let alone multiple collections. It is our researchers who have that opportunity. Even if you get a tenure track position that requires publication, you may not have the time or the resources to study multiple copies of a specific book. Researchers get to explore the riches of our collections and place our literary heritage into a cultural or historical context. So when do we get to do this? When we create exhibitions or pull materials for classes and instructors. These activities constitute publication, outreach, promotion, and education for a variety of audiences. That is why you are spending the semester studying a book.