B.A. (English literature), Colby College, June 1963.

M.A. (English literature), New York University, June 1964.

Ph.D. (English literature), New York University, October 1973.

M.S. in Library Service, Columbia University, October 1976.

Intermediate training seminar (library organization and administration), The New York Public Library, March-June 1979.

Introductory training seminar (library organization), The New York Public Library, February-March 1980.

Automated systems in rare books and special collections, Columbia University, March 1980.

Library Management Skills Institute, Office of Management Studies, Association of Research Libraries, at the University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, March 1984.

Strategies for Special Collections Librarianship, Columbia University Rare Book School, July 1986.

French, Latin, German (reading knowledge only).

3/91 to date: English-language literature bibliographer, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, University of Pennsylvania.

Reporting to the Director for Collections, and in cooperation with the Humanities Bibliographer and the Department of English, I select primary and secondary materials in English-language literature or, whatever their language of origin or format, relevant to the study of English-language literatures. I am responsible for a six-figure acquisitions budget. I am also responsible for formal liaison between the Library and the Department of English. I wrote the library's first collection policy for this subject.

3/91 to date: Curator, Research Services, Department of Special Collections, Van Pelt Library.

Reporting to the Director of Libraries and the Director for Special Collections, I am responsible for public service, selection and acquisitions, exhibitions, departmental publications, donor relations, and Friends of the Library activities. Penn is an ARL library. Its Special Collections hold approximately 200,000 printed books dating from the fifteenth through the twentieth centuries. Manuscripts date from the European Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment and also represent all of United States history; South America; South Asia; and North Africa. Modern literary manuscripts are represented in quantity.

12/83-2/91: Curator of Special Collections/Assistant Director of Libraries for Special Collections, Van Pelt Library.

Reporting to the Director of Libraries, I administered the Department of Special Collections, with responsibilities that included, immediately following my appointment, the creation of collection, reading room, photographic, and conservation policies, new job descriptions, and almost complete restaffing, as well as a general reconception of donor relations and Friends of the Library activities and publications. Other duties included public service, selection and acquisitions, exhibitions, grant applications, and administration of the budget for a department consisting of 4.5 professional and approximately 4 FTE clerical and student staff.

5/82-11/83: Assistant Curator of Special Collections, Van Pelt Library.

A public service position, with additional responsibilities for collection development, donor relations, Friends of the Library activities and publications, organization of Library-sponsored lectures and public events, and participation in planning and mounting exhibitions.

12/81-6/82: Curator of Special Collections, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA.

A temporary position (on leave from and with the permission of the University of Pennsylvania) to examine Lehigh University's special collections for possible deaccession, with interim responsibility for ordinary public service in the collections, liaison with the Library's Friends's group, examination of the public stacks for special collections materials, organizing Library-sponsored lectures and events, and mounting exhibitions. My study helped to convince the President and Board of Trustees to retain the collections; the Library subsequently hired the first full-time special collections librarian in its history.

9/77-11/81: Librarian, Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, The New York Public Library.

A public service position with primary responsibility for personal and written reference services, and additional collection developent and Divisional catalog maintenance duties.

5/77-6/77: Intern (cataloger), Special Collections, Department of Printed Books, Bodleian Library, Oxford University, Oxford, England.

1/77-8/77: Special Projects Bibliographer (part-time), Lehigh University.

1/76-5/76: Intern (cataloger), The Library Company of Philadelphia.

Teaching: Composition and literature:

I have taught university-level composition and literature courses both full- and part-time. For the Department of English, University of Pennsylvania, I teach undergraduate and graduate courses on bibliography and methods of research, the history of books and printing, and English and American literature (Renaissance England and modern American literature; courses include: Renaissance poetry; Shakespeare; non-Shakespearian Renaissance drama; Jane Austen and the political novel; representing the Manhattan Project; academic fictions; the American west in literature; literature of war).

Teaching: Librarianship:

Summer 1983: Introduction to Rare Book Librarianship, an intensive course at the Columbia University School of Library Service Rare Book School (co-taught 1983-1993 with John Parker, Curator, James Ford Bell Library, University of Minnesota; taught singly 1994 to date). Repeated (under various titles): 1984-1991. Resumed at the University of Virginia Rare Book School in 1993 to date.

Summer 1997: Teaching the History of Books and Printing (co-taught with Michael T. Ryan, Director for Special Collections, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, University of Pennsylvania), an intensive course at the University of Virginia Rare Book School.

1986-1988: History of Books and Printing, a one-semester course, taught fall 1986, spring 1987, and spring 1988 semesters, School of Library Service, Columbia University.

Consulting:

Rare Book Collection, Lehigh University, 1978 and subsequently
The Library of Congress, 1987 and subsequently
The William Penn Foundation (Philadelphia, PA), 1999

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS AND SCHOLARSHIP

Dissertation: "'Pity the Tale of Me': A Reading of Sidney's Astrophil and Stella." Richard C. Harrier, adviser. Abstract in DAI, 34 (1973-4), 7724-A.

"Introduction," pp. v-xii, in American Encyclopaedia of Printing, ed. John Luther Ringwalt (Philadelphia 1871), rpt. in Nineteenth-Century Book Arts and Printing History, no. 21 (New York 1981).

"Addendum to the Thom Gunn Bibliography," Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 75 (1981), 354.

"Sidney's Purposeful Humor: Astrophil and Stella 59 and 83," ELH: A Journal of English Literary History, 49 (1982), 751-64.

"Sidney's Astrophil and Stella, Sonnet 89," The Explicator, 42 (Winter 1984), 2-3.

"'To Portrait That Which in This World Is Best': Stella in Perspective" [Astrophil and Stella 29 and 9], Studies in Philology, 81 (1984), 419-37.

"The Elsevier Republics," in The Elsevier Republics: Guide to the Microfiche Edition (Bethesda, MD.: Congressional Information Services, Inc., 1988), pp. 1-14.

"Book," International Encyclopedia of Communications, Erik Barnouw, Editor in Chief (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), I:209-17.

"Reluctant Virgins: The Stigma of Print Revisited," Colby Quarterly, 26:2 (June 1990), 75-86.

Human Documents: Tom Phillips's Art of the Page. An Exhibition Selected from the Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1993.

This publication received the Katharine Keyes Leab and Daniel J. Leab "American Book Prices Current" Exhibition Catalogue Award, Association of College and Research Libraries/ALA, 1994.

Being Read: The Career of Howard Fast. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Libraries, 1994.

"The History of the Herman Teerink Collection of Jonathan Swift at the University of Pennsylvania Library," Swift Studies, 10 (1995), 80-88.

"Noticing Howard Fast," Prospects: An Annual of American Cultural Studies, 20 (1995), 525-541.

"'You Must Remember This . . . ': or, Libraries as a Locus of Cultural Memories," in Cultural Memory and the Construction of Identity, edited by Dan Ben-Amos and Liliane Weissberg (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999), pp. 202-230.

"The Furness Memorial Library," in The Penn Library Collections at 250: From Franklin to the Web, ed. Michael T. Ryan and J. Dennis Hyde (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Library, 2000), pp. 60-79.

"Obituary" [Ruth Samson Luborsky], The Spenser Review, 33:3 (Autumn 2002), 20-21

"The Press and the Poets" [The ELM Press, Eleanor Wilner's Precessional, and Susan Stewart's The Elements], in Collaborations: Enid Mark and The ELM Press (Wallingford, PA: The ELM Press, 2003), pp. 15-25.

"Afterword," Teaching Bibliography, Textual Criticism, and Book History, ed. Ann R. Hawkins (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2006), pp. 178-184.

"A Tract for Its Time: Walter Van Tilburg Clark's The Ox-Bow Incident and American Interventionism" (in progress).

"Selling Off: A Plain and Easy Pathway to Health for Rare Book and Manuscript Libraries" [on library deaccession], American Book Collector, n.s. 2, no. 5 (September-October 1981), 35-43.

"How Much Research Would a Research Librarian Do If a Research Librarian Could Do Research?" in Options for the 80s: Proceedings of the Second National Conference of the Association of College and Research Libraries, ed. Virgil F. Massman and Michael D. Kathman, Foundations in Library and Information Science, 17 (Greenwich, CT: Jai Press, 1982), 2:463-70.

"Goodbye to All That: A Case Study in Deaccessioning," Wilson Library Bulletin, 56 (May 1982), 663-68.

"Rare Book Collections: The Need for Interpretation," Wilson Library Bulletin, 58 (October 1983), 115-19.

"Books about Books," in Rare Books 1983-84: Trends, Collections, Sources, ed. Alice D. Schreyer (New York: Bowker, 1984), pp. 81-92.

"The Rare Book Librarian's Day," Rare Books and Manuscripts Librarianship, 1:2 (Fall 1986), 93-105.

Reprinted in The Best of Library Lit. 19 -- The Best of 1988, ed. Jane Anne Hannigan (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1989), pp. 348-61.

"Publication of Reference Tools for Special Collections," The Reference Librarian, no. 15 (Fall 1986), pp. 89-107

Also in The Publishing and Review of Reference Sources, ed. Bill Katz and Robin Kinder (New York: Haworth, 1987), pp. 89-107.

"A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale: The Profession of Rare Book Librarianship in the 1980s," Library Trends, 36:1 (Summer 1987), 141-156 [special issue: "Recent Trends in Rare Book Librarianship"].

["John Parker,"] in A Book For Jack: Words To, By and About John Parker . . . (Minneapolis: Associates of the James Ford Bell Library, 1991), pp. 241-44.

"Dreiser and Libraries," PACSCL News, 1:2 (December 1991), 1-8.

Reprinted in TK

["Agostino Ramelli, Le diverse et artificiose machine, Paris 1588"]; and (with Roland Mushat Frye), ["Book of Common Prayer, Boston 1928 (i.e., 1930)]," in Vision of a Collector: The Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection at The Library of Congress (Washington, DC: The Library of Congress, 1991), pp. 50-52, 402-404.

"What Good Is an Old Book?" Rare Books and Manuscripts Librarianship, 7:1 (1992), 26-42.

Reprinted in Book Source Monthly, 9:12 (March 1994), 14-17.

"Garbage or Treasure? The Case for Acquiring Rare Books," The Chronicle of Higher Education (January 13, 1993), p. A48.

"Rare Books and Special Collections," World Encyclopedia of Library and Information Services, 3rd ed., Robert Wedgeworth, General Editor (Chicago: American Library Association, 1993), pp. 698-703.

"Seduction and Betrayal: An Insider's View of Internal Theft," Wilson Library Bulletin, 69 (September 1994), 30-33.

Reprinted in TK

"Rare Book Libraries," in International Encyclopedia of Information and Library Science, ed. John Feather and Paul Sturges (London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 388-393.

"Is There a Future for Special Collections? and Should There Be?" RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage, 1 (2000), 54-76.

"Private Libraries," in International Dictionary of Library Histories, ed. David H. Stam (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001), 1:140-144.

"Public Services and Outreach in Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Libraries," Library Trends, 52:1 (Summer 2003), 87-108 [special issue: "Special Collections in the Twenty-first Century," ed. Barbara M. Jones].

"What's a Library For?" Studies in Education [Germantown Friends School], no. 89 (Summer 2005), pp. 10-18.

"University of Pennsylvania Library, Rare Book and Manuscript Library: The Horace Howard Furness Memorial," and "University of Pennsylvania Library," in Celebrating Research: Rare and Special Collections from the Membership of the Association of Research Libraries: Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the Association of Research Libraries, ed. Philip N. Cronenwett, Kevin Osborn, and Samuel A. Streit (Washington: Association of Research Libraries, 2007), pp. 198-199, 295.

An untitled essay on the function of exhibitions for special collections (in progress).

An untitled essay on the relationship between academic theory and special collections (in progress).

Journal of Library History, 13 (1978), 486-7:

Treasures of the Chicago Public Library: A Contribution Toward a Descriptive Catalog, comp. Thomas A. Orlando and Marie Gecik (Chicago 1977).

Printing History, 1, no. 2 (1979), 40-2:

Edward Hodnett, Francis Barlow: First Master of English Book Illustration (Berkeley 1978).

American Book Collector, n.s. 1 (1980)-n.s. 3 (1982):

"Short Views," seventeen review columns written over three years concerning books of bibliographical, library history, and book and manuscript collecting interest.

American Book Collector, n.s. 2 (January-February 1981), 49-52:

James J. Barnes and Patience P. Barnes, Hitler's Mein Kampf in Britain and America: A Publishing History (Cambridge 1980).

American Book Collector, n.s. 2 (March-April 1981), 60-73:

Robert Halsband, The Rape of the Lock and Its Illustrations (Oxford 1980); William Blake's Designs for Edward Young's Night Thoughts, gen. ed. David V. Erdman (Oxford 1980); The Work of E. H. Shepard, ed. Rawle Knox (New York 1980); David Traxel, An American Saga: The Life and Times of Rockwell Kent (New York 1980); Selma G. Lanes, The Art of Maurice Sendak (New York 1980).

Phaedrus, 8 (1981), 82-3:

Reprint of the review (directly above) of Selma G. Lanes, The Art of Maurice Sendak (New York 1980).

Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 75 (1981), 493-8:

Review, vols. 1 and 2 (Charlottesville, VA, 1979, 1980).

Printing History, 4 (1982), 71-3:

Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (Cambridge 1979).

Shakespeare Bulletin, 1:11 (1982-3), 22-4:

Mark Taylor, Shakespeare's Darker Purpose: A Question of Incest (New York 1982).

Shakespeare Bulletin, 1:12 (1982-3), 20-1:

Robert W. Uphaus, Beyond Tragedy: Structure and Experience in Shakespeare's Romances (Lexington, KY, 1981).

Shakespeare Bulletin, 2:12/3:1 (1984/1985), 41-3:

Stanley Wells, Re-Editing Shakespeare for the Modern Reader: Based on Lectures Given at The Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C. (Oxford 1984).

Printing History, 6 (1984), 28-30:

Miriam Usher Chrisman, Lay Culture, Learned Culture: Books and Social Change in Strasbourg, 1480-1599 (New Haven 1982).

Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 79 (1985), 581-4:

Sandra Clark, The Elizabethan Pamphleteers: Popular Moralistic Pamphlets 1580-1640 (Rutherford, NJ, 1983).

Sidney Newsletter, 6:2 (1985-6), 17-20:

Millicent V. Hay, The Life of Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester (1563-1626) (Washington 1984).

Rare Books and Manuscripts Librarianship, 1 (1986), 65-69:

A Directory of Rare Book and Special Collections in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, ed. Moelwyn I. Williams (London 1985).

College and Research Libraries, 48 (1987), 177-180:

Tom McArthur, Worlds of Reference: Lexicography, Learning and Language from the Clay Tablet to the Computer (Cambridge 1986).

Library Resources and Technical Services, 32 (1988), 83-85:

A. M. Scham, Managing Special Collections (New York 1987).

Rare Books and Manuscripts Librarianship, 3 (1988), 66-73:

Bernard M. Rosenthal, The Gentle Invasion: Continental Emigré Booksellers of the Thirties and Forties and Their Impact on the Antiquarian Booktrade in the United States, 2nd Annual Sol. M. Malkin Lecture in Bibliography (New York 1989); and E. Millicent Sowerby, Rare People and Rare Books (Williamsburg, VA, 1987).

Rare Books and Manuscripts Librarianship, 4 (1989), 121-6:

Barclay Ogden, On the Preservation of Books and Documents in Original Form. Report. (Washington, DC, October 1989).

Rare Books and Manuscripts Librarianship, 5 (1990), 110-13:

Anthony Hobson, Humanists and Bookbinders: The Origins and Diffusion of the Humanistic Bookbinding 1459-1559 (Cambridge 1989).

CAN: Conservation Administration News, no. 48 (January 1992), pp. 24-5:

G. Thomas Tanselle, Libraries, Museums, and Reading, 6th Sol. M. Malkin Lecture in Bibliography (New York 1991).

MultiCultural Review, 2:2 (June 1993), 56:

Greg Johnson, Pagan Babies (New York 1993).

Rare Books and Manuscripts Librarianship, 12:2 (1998), 122-123:

Henri-Jean Martin, The French book: religion, absolutism, and readership, 1585-1715, translated by Paul Saenger and Nadine Saenger, Johns Hopkins symposia in comparative history; 22 (Baltimore 1996).

The Library Quarterly, 69:1 (1999), 130-133:

The Future of the Book, ed. Geoffrey Nunberg (Berkeley 1996).

Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 94:4 (December 2000), 577-578:

Frederick G. Kilgour, The Evolution of the Book (New York 1998).

Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 96:2 (June 2002), 310-315:

Ronald J. Zboray and Mary Saracino Zboray, A Handbook for the Study of Book History in the United States (Washington 2000).

The Library Quarterly, 72:4 (October 2002), 504-507:

Illuminating Letters: Typography and Literary Interpretation, ed. Paul C. Gutjahr and Megan L. Benton, Studies in Print Culture and the History of the Book (Amherst, MA, 2001).

The Library Quarterly, 73:3 (July 2003), 357-359:

The Oxford Chronology of English Literature, ed. Michael Cox (Oxford and New York 2002), 2 vols.

JASNA News [Jane Austen Society of North America News], 20:2 (Spring 2004), 19:

William H. Galperin, The Historical Austen (Philadelphia 2003).

JASNA News [Jane Austen Society of North America News], 22:1 (Spring 2006), 16:

Peter Knox-Shaw, Jane Austen and the Enlightenment (Cambridge 2004).

The Library Quarterly, 77:3 (July 2007), 345-347:

The Beinecke Library of Yale University, ed. Stephen Parks. ([New Haven] 2003).

Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 102:2 (June 2008), 252-254:

Leslie Howsam, Old Books and New Histories: An Orientation to Studies in Book & Print Culture (Toronto 2006).

Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 103:2 (June 2009), 245-248:

Jan Fergus, Provincial Readers in Eighteenth-Century England (Oxford 2006)

Shakespeare Bulletin, forthcoming:

James Grantham Turner, Libertines and Radicals in Early Modern London: Sexuality, Politics, and Literary Culture, 1630-1685 (Oxford 2002).

"Robert Burton, Anthony Powell, and the Anatomy Form."

"What Is So Rare as a Rare Book Librarian?"

"Early Maps in the Rare Book Division of The New York Public Library."

"The Book in the Age of Shakespeare."

Repeated: The Book Arts and the Humanities, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ, February 1982.
Repeated: Printing and the Book Arts: The Tradition of Quality, The New York Public Library, May 1983.

"The History of Printing, 1450 to the Present."

"How Much Research Would a Research Librarian Do If a Research Librarian Could Do Research?"

"Special Collections Materials in Publicly-Accessible Stacks: A Problem in Library Security."

"A Modest Proposal: Towards a Greater Philadelphia APHA Chapter."

"Librarians Meet Scholars: Scholars Meet Librarians: A General Stillness Descends."

"Anamorphic Portraits of Stella in Sidney's Astrophil and Stella."

"The Rare Book Librarian's Day."

Repeated: The Franklin Inn, Philadelphia, February 1986.

"Teaching the History of Books and Printing in Library School."

"One Man's Meat: Canonical and Non-Canonical Texts and Acquisitions in Special Collections."

Repeated: The Philomathean Society, University of Pennsylvania, April 1988.
Repeated: Friends of the Library, University of Pennsylvania, November 1990.
Repeated: Louisiana State University, October 1991.

"How Did Fine Books Get Printed?"

Repeated: May 1990, Bryn Mawr College.
Repeated: Pforzheimer Lecture, The New York Public Library, March 1997.
Repeated: University of Massachusetts, Amherst, November 1999.

"Reluctant Virgins: The Stigma of Print Revisited."

Repeated: Seminar on Shakespeare, Columbia University, September 1988.
Repeated: Columbia University School of Library Service, July 1989.
Repeated: Renaissance Forum, Graduate Center, City University of New York, October 1989.
Repeated: The Book and the Idea of the Book, Third Annual Pennsylvania Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, University of Pennsylvania, October 1989.

"Remembering Benj. Franklin."

"An Insider's View of Insider Theft."

Repeated: Smithsonian Institution, 1994 National Conference on Cultural Property Protection, Alexandria, VA, February 1994.

"A Tract for Its Time: Walter Van Tilburg Clark's The Ox-Bow Incident and American Interventionism."

Repeated: University of Virginia, January 2001.

"Is There a Future for Special Collections? and Should There Be?"

Repeated: The Edwin Wolf 2nd Memorial Lecture, The Philobiblon Club, Philadelphia, February 1996.
Repeated: University of Virginia, July 1999.

"Getting the Books Up: Thoughts on Mounting an Exhibition of 'Pretty Books.'"

"Nazi Book Collectors I Have Not Known: The History of the Herman Teerink Collection of Jonathan Swift at the University of Pennsylvania Library."

"Preventing Insider Theft."

"Some Aspects of the Relationships Between Special Collections and Academic Theory."

"Among School Children"

"Some Considerations for Book Collectors Considering Disposing of their Collections to Libraries."

"James Tanis" (invited speaker on the occasion of his retirement as Constance A. Jones Director of Libraries, Bryn Mawr College Libraries).

"Teaching the History of Books and Printing" (with Michael T. Ryan).

"Are There Any New Paths For Book Collectors?" (a plenary address at a conference on What's Hot & What's Not: Changing Trends in Book Collecting).

Repeated (as "Hoosiers: Collecting the Unread and the Uninteresting"): Washington Area Rare Book Group, Washington, DC, May 2000.
Repeated: University of Virginia, July 2000.

"Dead Books."

Repeated: Rowfant Club, Cleveland, October 1998.
Repeated: Chester County, PA, November 1998.
Repeated: Cornell University, February 2001.
Repeated: University of Edinburgh, June 2002.

"Teaching the History of Books and Printing."

"Exhibiting European Books in American Libraries"

Repeated: University of Virginia, January 2000.

"U & S: Updike Reads Shakespeare"

"Who Is John Galt?"
Repeated: University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, November 2002.
Repeated: Philobiblon Club, Philadelphia, January 2003.
Repeated: Syracuse University, March 2007 (forthcoming)

"'Price,' 'Cost,' and 'Value' in Rare Book and Manuscript Collections"

"The social, cultural, and physical environment of print and printers in the Early Modern period" (January 13)
"Franklin as Bookman" (January 27)

"You Can't Tell a Book by Its Cover: or, Bindings? -- Why Bindings?"

I have edited scholarly books as a freelance editor. These books include:

Richard M. Pious, The American Presidency (New York: Basic Books, 1979).

John Whiteclay Chambers II, The Tyranny of Change: America in the Progressive Era 1900-1917 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980).

Diane L. Willen, John Russell, First Earl of Bedford: One of the King's Men, Royal Historical Society Studies in History, 23 (London 1981).

Richard L. Rubin, Press, Party, and Presidency (New York: W. W. Norton, 1981).

Laura K. Olson, The Political Economy of Aging: The State, Private Power, and Social Welfare (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982).

American Book Collector (formerly Book Collector's Market)
Book review editor, 1979-82.

Bibliography Newsletter (BiN)
Co-editor, 1983-1987.

Bulletin of the New York Shakespeare Society
Editorial Board, 1983-1986.

Sidney Newsletter
Editorial Board, 1985-1990.

University of Mississippi Studies in English
Editorial Board, 1986-

Rare Books and Manuscripts Librarianship
Editorial Board, 1986-1992.
Editor search committee, 1997-1998.

University of Pennsylvania Press
Reader, 1986-
Editor, Rosenbach Series in Bibliography, 1984-1991.

University of California Press
Reader, 1989-

Peter Nichols, "In the Valley of the Shadow of Death 101," The Pennsylvania Gazette, 97:6 (July-August 1999), 48-52 (http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0799/nichols.html)

Peter Nichols, "Nuclear Fictions," Colby, 90:1 (Winter 2001), TK-TK (http://www.colby.edu/colby.mag/issues/win01/traister/)

Trustee, 1979-82.
Chair, Program Committee, 1982-84.
Program chair, 3rd annual conference: "The Decorated Book / The Crystal Goblet: A Reconsideration," New York, September 1978.
Program chair, 4th annual conference: "The Renaissance Book," New York, September 1979.
Program co-chair, 5th annual conference: "The Permanence of Ephemera," New York, September 1980.
Program co-chair, 6th annual conference: "The Mark of the Printer," New York, September 1981.
Co-founder and Secretary, APHA / Manuscript Society Philadelphia Area Chapter, 1983-1986.

Nominating Committee, 1981.

Member, Committee on Security (ad hoc), 1979-82.
Member, Continuing Education Committee, 1980-84.
Nominee, Vice Chair / Chair-elect of the Section, 1980.
Seminar co-leader (reader services in special collections: books), RBMS preconference, Boston, June 1980.
Program Chair, 23rd annual preconference: "Growth in the Face of Adversity: The Business of Special Collections in the 1980s," Philadelphia, June 1982.
Chair, Publications Committee, 1983-84.
Member, Publications Committee, 1983-1989.
Member, 1987 Preconference Planning Committee, 1985-1987.
Member, Ethics Committee, 1988-92.
Vice-Chair of the Section, 1989-90.
Chair of the Section, 1990-91.
Member, Executive Committee, 1989-92.
Chair, Nominating Committee, 1991-92.
Member, 1995 Pre-Conference Program Planning Committee, 1993-1995.

ACRL Greater New York Metropolitan Area Chapter: moderator, "Faculty Status, Academic Rank, Job Security, Tenure, and the Academic and Research Librarian: A Forum," Columbia University, April 1981.
Member, subcommittee of ACRL Publications Committee, charged with investigating possibilities for an ACRL-sponsored journal for rare book and manuscript librarians, 1983-84. This journal now appears as Rare Books and Manuscripts Librarianship (since 1986).
Search Committee (Rare Books and Manuscripts Librarianship editor), 1997-98.

Member, Archives, Manuscripts, and Special Collections Task Force, 1985-1988; AMSC Committee, 1988-1991, steering committee, 1988-1989.

Member, organizing committee, 1982-83.

Review panelist, 1982-

Organizer and moderator, five lectures on great American libraries, New York, October-November 1981.

Session leader: resources for eighteenth-century studies in North American libraries, NEASECS annual conference, C. W. Post College, Greenvale, NY, October 1980.

Advisory Board, Program in the History of the Book in American Culture, 1987-1990.