A Future Path of RBMS: A Bookseller’s Point of View

Abstract

Rare books, manuscripts, early ephemera, photographs, film—everything rare, scarce, hard to find, and perhaps even harder to preserve—is this the final frontier, or are we rehashing the same questions that have been around since the hand-press days: what to collect, the cost of materials to buy and preserve, and how to get people into and using special collection libraries? Do we view the material itself as the treasure or spend our time figuring out how to create and then use new technology to legitimize and even promote our own positions? Are library positions so narrowly focused that any . . .