From “Lower Tibet” (the floor underneath RBS where its collections and other things are kept), to the top of Special Collections (a bit of Michael is visible here, ascending the stairwell) we roamed and ruminated!

After the morning gathering (donuts today) of all 5 classes, we split off for ours into Lower Tibet to examine a teaching collection RBS has assembled over the years of artifacts. This included binding leathers, parchment samples, packets of various sorts of ephemera (for teaching typography, illustration methods, paper, etc.), plates of steel and copper, a lithography stone, electrotype and stereotype plates, and many other items. A booklet sourcing a bunch of this material was given to us, and will be of great use to me in building such a collection at Trinity (we already have a huge head start).

In the afternoon we discussed The Peddlar Lady of Gushing Cross, an “animated book” by Moving Tales, which published it, as well as the WordPlay Shakespeare (an “enhanced e-book” by the New Book Press. We had a rather animated (so to speak) discussion about what was a book, and the concept of “loss and gain” when it comes to the ways in which the culture “chooses” to go in one direction or another (like, say, to embrace the novel, or the e-book, or the online newspaper). It generated a lot of potential in terms of how to inform my own class discussions.

During lunch, I am proud to say, we gave the first “class gift” during Michael’s 5-year tenure (we will be listed as “H-90 2014” under the “Very Good Friend” strata of giving next year). This was an idea of mine to give a little to RBS as a class, and to challenge other classes to do the same! Michael thanked us nicely in his closing remarks, and it only increased the sense of community we shared (and perhaps it helped to spur the very long lines for RBS merchandise). Time to pack up and drive back to Hartford!