Faculty of Information student Julia King has been named the Book History and Printing Culture (BHPC) Apprentice at Massey College for 2015.
Julia (pictured standing right) is a first year Master of Information (MI) student, pursuing Library and Information Sciences (LIS) and BHPC. Joining Julia is the second BHPC Printing Apprentice, Amy Cote (pictured standing left), who is a doctoral student in the English department.
Since September, Julia and Amy have been volunteering on a regular basis in Massey College’s Bibliography Room, assisting the College’s Printer, Nelson Adams, with the library’s collection of 19th century printing presses and offering other general help around the Robertson Davies Library.
As a Printing Apprentice, Julia will be introduced to the skills of typesetting, registration, presswork, distribution, and principles of letterpress design. She will hold her apprenticeship for a year before automatically becoming a Printing Fellow in the second year.
Julia is interested in rare book librarianship and the circumstances and context surrounding the creation of early printed books. She says her experience working with the printing presses compelled her to apply to the BHPC program.
“It’s a unique opportunity, and as a historian, the apprenticeship will give me hands-on experience with methods that aren’t in use anymore, but are central to the period I study, which is the 15th century, the period when printing was developed,” explained Julia. She links her studies to the practical experience she gained through working at the printing press.
Through the apprenticeship, both Julia and Amy hope to gain an increased knowledge of the mechanics and history of printing in order to further their academic and personal interests in book history and printing culture. One of the final tasks for the apprentices is to set a “quarto,” a four-page booklet made up of a single sheet of paper, to be used during printing press demonstrations.
The apprentices present the set quarto in a demonstration on the presses to next year’s BKS10001, the intro to BHPC class that all BHPC students are required to take. Julia is looking forward to learning more about typesetting and design in order to get her skills up to speed to what is required to successfully set a quarto.
This year, Julia hopes to familiarize herself with the care and maintenance of Victorian-era printing presses. Her dream job is to be a rare book librarian, working closely with medieval manuscripts, in a setting similar to the British Library Manuscripts Section or an Oxbridge College library. However, she explained that many of these rare book librarianship positions requires a PhD, so the next logical step after her apprenticeship and masters degree, would be to pursue her doctorate.
“The experience of working at Massey is unparalleled, the mentorship is supportive, and it’s fun to be able to leave behind the sometimes cerebral world that we live in during our studies,” explains Julia. “I would highly recommend volunteering to anyone who is interested, as you won’t find this opportunity anywhere else.”
Assisting Julia and Amy are BHPC Printing Fellows, Jeanette Blanchard and Timothy Perry, both of whom are in their second year of the MI program at the iSchool. Jeanette and Timothy were selected as BHPC Printing Apprenticeships in 2014. As BHPC Fellows now, Jeanette and Timothy are responsible for typesetting and printing a quarto, providing demonstrations and tours for the BHPC students and those from relevant courses, and helping to teach the new BHPC apprentices the skills involved in letterpress printing!
Congratulations to all.
