Rare Books Course, Yale 9-14 June, 2024

Kathryn James and Mike Widener will be co-teaching the Rare Book School course, “Law Books: History and Connoisseurship,” at the Yale Law School next summer, June 9-14. Drawing on the Yale Law Library’s outstanding rare book collection, the course offers an intensive week-long introduction to the history of law materials in print and manuscript, and to developing and using historical collections for teaching and research. Kathryn James became the Yale Law Library’s rare book librarian in 2021 upon Mike Widener’s retirement. If you’ve waited and wondered about the course, know that this will be the last opportunity to take the class with Mike Widener, who will be hanging up his Rare Book School boots on June 15 after fourteen years.

Details of registration are available on the Rare Book School website.

For those readers of this blog who are unfamiliar with the Rare Book School, it has done much to spread knowledge of the importance of the proper study of books to many scholarly disciplines. The website indicates the range of activities. If Mike is ending his work for the summer course, one hopes he will continue other activities, as there are few around who are so learned and charismatic as propagandist for the proper study of books, printing, book culture and what they tell us about past and present.