BYU

Harold B. Lee Library

Gentle Madness of Book Collecting

A Conference hosted by the L. Tom Perry Special Collections

  • Time: 9:00 AM
  • Date: Friday, October 24, 2003
  • Place: Harold B. Lee Library


About the Event

L. Tom Perry Special Collections will be hosting a special conference entitled “The Gentle Madness of Book Collecting” in room 1130 of the Harold B. Lee Library on October 24, 2003. Speakers will include administration and curators of the department. Featured activities will include small group seminars with hands-on opportunities; interaction with book collectors, curators, and conservators; as well as behind the scenes tours of the special collection vaults.

We take the title of our conference from Nicholas Basbanes’ wonderful, 1995 book on bibliophiles and bibliomania. As he posits, one irony of the modern internet age is that the passion to possess books is as pervasive today as ever in recorded history. It is still a Gentle Madness. There are those of us who work in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections of the Harold B. Lee library at BYU that have been smitten by this marvelous disease for some time. We, however, collect our books with the intention of sharing them with all who wish to come. Hence, the purpose of our series of seminars is to invite you to take an afternoon and evening to join with us as you indulge your own gentle madness for books. Don Quixote de la Mancha, you recall, addicted himself to the reading of books of chivalry. If you suffer from a book addiction, we promise we will not cure you when we see you on October 24.

Links and Materials