Home | Recent Lectures | Penn State Series | Book History at Penn State | Director's Biography
Penn State Center
for the History of the Book
he Penn State Center for the
History of the Book is an interdisciplinary venture which promotes
the study of book culture—the apparatus that exists in any
advanced society for the production and dissemination of the written
or printed word. Historians of the book, often using archival
sources, investigate such topics as the profession of authorship,
the history of printing and publishing, the growth of libraries,
the development of book distribution, and the history of literacy.
They study books as aesthetic objects, technological products,
and cultural signifiers.
The Penn State Center offers graduate seminars and undergraduate honors courses, brings lecturers to campus, mounts exhibits, and publishes a book series. It is affiliated with the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress and is part of a confederation of similar centers at the British Library, the Sorbonne, the University of London, and several American universities. It is also linked with such scholarly organizations as the American Antiquarian Society; the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and book design, and the history of copyright.
The Center is based in the Department of English and is closely affiliated with the Special Collections Department in Pattee Library. The Center is supported by the Department of English, the College of the Liberal Arts, the Penn State Press, the University Libraries, and the Pennsylvania Center for the Book.