Taking the show on the road (3/25/2019)

On Monday, 3/18, Rudy and I went to Emory University to give a presentation on the EJLPP. We are grateful to the staffs at the Rose Rare Book Library (in the Woodrum Library) and the Special Collections Department of the Pitts Theology Library for their help--particularly to Bo Adams, Courtney Chartier, and Elizabeth Shoemaker for their help.

Rudy's presentation, which is a graduation requirement for the MA degree she is pursuing, focused on the work she had done in the sphere of public history: creating the social media presence for the EJLPP. This is going to be an ongoing process, and I'll introduce you to other students as they join us. She spoke about the project itself, as well as ways to invite the public into the study of the history of the book. We learned how she chose images for the Flickr site, how she organized them, and how she published and publicized them on Instagram; she told us a little about her followers, too.

Among the audience members, most of whom were history-of-the-book geeks like us, was my Georgia Southern colleague Corinna Zeltsman, whose specialty is Latin American printing in the 19th century. She took a few photos, as did Rudy's family. We are so pleased at how well the presentation went--we got lots of questions, and people were happy to see the books. Thanks to Elizabeth Shoemaker and Bo Adams, members of the audience were able to page through volumes printed in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. It was great fun to talk about public history, old books, and new directions.

In the pictures below, you'll see me showing Rudy a 16thC book with a tooled cover, Rudy giving her talk, and then me talking about future tasks.