Initiative launch

At the start of the pandemic, the Book Initiative had launched its website, hosted inaugural lectures by Isabel Hofmeyr and Jill Lepore, co-organized a transcribe-a-thon  with the Colored Conventions Project and Alexander Library, sponsored graduate student field trips to area libraries and letterpresses, selected graduate students to receive fellowships at Rare Book School, and sponsored an undergraduate class in bookmaking, based at the Honors College Makerspace. In summer 2021, Rutgers University Press and Princeton University Press will sponsor graduate students interested in learning more about alt-ac careers.

Mentions of the Initiative in the New Yorker and Washington Post generated offers from several NYC- and Philadelphia-based special collections libraries to host Rutgers interns, and we hope to expand the program after the pandemic.  At that point, our new table-top press  will come out of storage to print student projects, dissertation and honors thesis title-pages, demonstration posters – the choice is yours.