Hello world!

Welcome to PaRareBooks.Wordpress.com.

This is a fairly unofficial blog from the Rare Books Librarian at the State Library of Pennsylvania. I have been in this position for just under a month now and since my supervisor has told me that blogging about our work here would be ‘a great idea,’ well, here it is.

My intentions are to blog about

• the new Rare Collections Library being constructed here in the historic Forum Building (part of the Capitol Complex in Harrisburg, PA);
• the holdings of the rare books collection (especially as I discover things that I think are especially interesting);
• rare collections preservation and conservation issues;
• other rare books and special collections topics, especially when related to Pennsylvania.

One more thing: the blog title. During one of the interviews for this position, my supervisor mentioned that if I accepted the job I would be “joining a line of erudite and eccentric predecessors.” As I recall it, I responded by opining that I could surely fill one of those roles and hoped I could fill the other, but left open the question of which was which.