WRBG September In-Person Event: Presentation by 2024 RBS Scholarship Winner

The Washington Rare Book Group invites you to join us for the first lecture of the 2024/25 season:

From Rare Book School to the Rare Book Division: Applying Lessons in Americana

by Allison Buser

We kick off the year with a report and rare book display from our most recent Rare Book School scholarship winner, Allison Buser.

Allison Buser is a reference and collection assistant in the Library’s Rare Book and Special Collections Division. She holds an MA in History as well as an MLIS from the University of Maryland, where she worked with both physical and digital archives and studied institutional histories and the collecting habits of nineteenth-century cultural heritage institutions in the United States. In the Rare Book Reading Room, she facilitates research inquiries, collections access, and material preservation while pursuing her research interests in topics relating to gender, science, and the history of cultural heritage repositories.

In attending Rare Book School this summer, Allison aspired to deepen her knowledge and stewardship of the Library of Congress’ collections as well as to develop meaningful relationships with others in the rare book community. The course was “History of the Book in America: A Survey from Colonial to Modern” led by Scott Casper, President of the American Antiquarian Society.

Join us in the Library of Congress’ new Center for the History of Communication (LJ-139) on the first floor of the Thomas Jefferson building as Allison shares reflections on her Rare Book School experience and takes us through a display of related material from the Rare Book & Special Collections Division.

There will be a Q&A session at the end of the talk, followed by a casual lunch in the Library’s Madison Cafeteria.

We hope you will join us!