LJ Talks to Terry Belanger

-- Library Journal, 10/11/2005

Terry Belanger is founder of the Rare Book School (RBS), an independent non-profit educational institute supporting the study of the history of books and printing and related subjects. Founded in 1983, it has been located at the University of Virginia since 1992. Belanger recently won a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award for his work, and said he would put the $500,000 back into the RBS. LJ's Norman Oder caught up with Belanger to ask about the future of the RBS, his experiences in the library world, and the importance of books as artifacts in an increasingly digital world.

LJ: How does the Internet affect the importance of books as objects?

TB: Beginning in late 80s, first with the enormous upsurge of microfilm/microfiche, a lot of us began to feel that, except as physical artifacts, rare books were going to drop off the spectrum, and were in danger of ceasing to be library materials and becoming instead museum materials. By 1995, it became clear, that anything that large numbers of people wanted access to was going to be made digitally available. I began saying that the rare book community had to change its direction. They were looking after materials that were valuable because of their three-dimensionality, as objects, but not valuable as the only way you could get access to their contents, because the more important the contents, the more likely you'd get them in a substitution format

What are the implications of that?

Take the huge 19th century English literary periodicals, The Scots Review, or The London Review. They used to take up half a floor in [Columbia's] Butler Library. What's going to happen to them when their contents are easily accessible online? Most libraries will say 'we recognize the primacy of the artifact,' but do we need 200 copies of everything in this country? A lot of places are going to want to reduce their stock of three-dimensional objects, because they subscribe to the greatest glory of American librarianship, which is access.

What's going to happen to all the old books?

We need to work together to get books as physical objects from where they're not wanted to where they are. The book trade helps. There's going to be huge flood of tertiary material. The future is going to be grim. So, how are we going to decide? That's where RBS comes in. It tries to train the rare book community to make intelligent decisions about cataloging, acquisition, and retention.

How big is the RBS collection?

We probably have between 50,000 and 100,000 something or others: books, maps, cards. Eventually, we'll need additional space, but a lot of other libraries are going to need less. So we already get gifts all over the place. We are the beneficiary as the result of a flood, fire, or purchase of a better copy, or the dregs when a gift is made to a library when nobody can figure out what to do with an incomplete set. We can use them, as teaching objects. It's not a library, it's a laboratory. So a book from the hand press period, with a deteriorated leather binding, is more useful than something in perfect condition. It's not our role to preserve a good last copy.

How will that grow?

Over time, assuming this place survives and prospers, which is great deal more likely, because of the MacArthur, and also that our principal donor died and left us $1 million. I can see us over the long haul taking the huddled masses yearning to be free.

What's your relationship with library community?

I taught at Columbia's library school from 1971 to 1992 and I had, in one course or another , 50 to 60 students, in rare books and the introductory core courses each year. RBS came out of that library school environment and was and still is seen as an outgrowth of library education. Universities have become far more present oriented. Look at the library schools, there are half a dozen that make an attempt to offer past-oriented courses, but it's not their main thrust. How is one going to make intelligent decisions as the physical space of the paper collections reduce in size? The answer is no longer locally, or regionally. It's probably nationally, and at RBS, in designing courses, this is what I'm thinking about.

Of the 300 students a year at RBS, how many are librarians?

About 40%, but it's a little tricky—some are digitizers, or technical specialists. After that we get about 10% of the following: antiquarian book dealers; conservators and bookbinders; academics; book collectors; and those in training to be one fo those. The average student is 40. These are five-day courses, six hours a day.

What makes RBS special?

The evaluation forms. That's why RBS works. After you've read six of these, you know what you're getting into. The people who know what to do if they want to learn something. They come here because it's more stimulating.

Do you have any message for the library community?

We must not deprive the future of the past. We have no right to hand the future a CD-ROM and call it Monticello. Because it's not. It's been a predisposition of the profession for 100 years to think that photography or film or microfiche or digitization completely satisfies our need for the original. Perhaps our best example is what is formerly the corpus of American newspapers. A lot of people are in general agreement with Mr. [Nicholson] Baker's book [Double Fold] and so am I. We didn't lead the procession to the dump, we just went to the dump. There was no coordinated attempt, no thoughtfulness, no responsibility to the future. We've lost all sorts of original copies of major papers. I hope we can do better with the rest of it.

Do you consider yourself a librarian?

People have been asking me that since 1971. I taught 400 rare book librarians at Columbia, probably 5,000 students at Columbia in the library school. Ninety percent of the people who know me would call me a librarian. I go to work in a building that says 'Library.' Do I have a library degree? No. Do I spend most of my time with librarians? Yes. I do consider myself to be a librarian, and I consider the question to be of no consequence. After nearly 25 years, maybe I should've asked them [Columbia] to give me an honorary degree.