The Heyman Center and the Rare Book and Manuscript Library

The field of book history has never been more vibrant, nor has the importance of interrogating the material dimensions of text, its creation and circulation and consumption, been more clear, as digital media upend traditional modes of publishing, reading, and even academic librarianship. “What is a book?” is a question whose stakes have never been higher, and book historians and bibliographers have risen to the challenge, producing work that examines not just how books exist as physical objects, but how those physical existences have been conditioned by historical circumstances, and how they in turn condition cultures and practices and reading […]