West Virginia University Libraries offers a rare book collection that includes works from William Shakespeare and Mark Twain. The collection now has a certified librarian who maintains care of the rare volumes and keeps an eye out for what more modern publications should be added.
Stewart Plein earned her certification in rare book librarianship from the University of Virginia’s renowned Rare Book School the top professional development program for rare book and special collection librarians, rare book sellers and collectors.
Jay Cole, senior advisor to president Gordon Gee, applauds Plein for her dedication to the Rare Book Room and work to enhance the academic environment at WVU.
“The library is the heart of any university and information circulated by the library is a university’s lifeblood,” Cole said. “We are equally fortunate to have a rare book librarian such as Stewart Plein, whose passion is matched only by her expertise. By earning a certificate from the prestigious Rare Book School, Stewart has added to her knowledge and brings distinction to herself and the entire university.”
Experts in the field acknowledge the career path isn’t for the faint of heart.
RBS offers weeklong courses for just two months over the summer. Classes are limited to fewer than 12, and instructors hand-select their students.
“It’s a pretty intensive schedule,” Plein said. “They say you get a semester’s worth of education in one week. You have to be really dedicated.”
The most inspiring part of her last course came from a guest lecturer who raised the point that many institutional libraries already own impressive rare book collections of American and British literature and do not have specific plans to add other centuries-old tomes in those areas. He asked them to consider where to next take their collections.
“That’s a fascinating question,” Plein said. “It gave me a new insight into the future of book collecting institutionally. It’s about looking ahead rather than back at things we already have.”
She is now focused on educating herself on materials that are now becoming rare, including a growing interest in items from the 1940s through the 1990s that already are scarce despite being mass produced.
In this vein, WVU Libraries recently acquired a collection of “zines” (short for magazines) that were published in San Francisco by West Virginia poet Sutton Breiding in the 1960s and to an under-represented area in the rare books collection, the works of African-American West Virginians from late 19th to early 20th century.
“Zines have become quite collectable,” Plein said. “They were just things that were traded between friends, they didn’t really have a production run, they were printed off on mimeograph machines, but they documented important pop culture moments so they really need to be collected or we’ll lose them.”
The Mountain State was home to many important African-American activists and leaders such as Booker T. Washington, author and educator, and J.R. Clifford, Civil War veteran, newspaper publisher, West Virginia’s first African-American attorney, and co-founder of the Niagara Movement (the precursor to the NAACP) with W.E.B. DuBois.
Plein regularly welcomes classes into the Rare Book Room for general tours or presentations on a specific topic.
“One of the greatest benefits of our Rare Book Room is that visitors get to interact with and handle these materials,” Plein said. “This is not just a storeroom. It is an interactive educational facility.”
-WVU-
mm/01/11/17
CONTACT: Monte Maxwell, communications coordinator for West
Virginia University Libraries
304-293-0306,
monte.maxwell@mail.wvu.edu