Reception: 6:30pm
Lecture: 7:00pm

Providence 375 Celebration at Providence Public Library

July – August Exhibit, July 21 lecture, 6:30-8pm, Barnard Room: Saving (Type)Face:  Printers and Booksellers of Providence – with Phoebe S. Bean, MLS

Please join us for an opening reception and talk on Providence's historic printers and booksellers.  Colonial printing expert and RIHS Printed Collection Librarian Phoebe S. Bean and PPL Special Collections Librarian Jordan Goffin will discuss the birth of the Providence book trade, tracing the life of an eighteenth-century book from the print shop to an interested reader.

Materials from the Library's Daniel Berkeley Updike History of Printing Collection will be on display in our 3rd floor Special Collections exhibit area.

About the Speakers

Phoebe S. Bean is a 10^th generation Yankee and a noted expert on the colonial printing history of Rhode Island and book culture of New England.

Ms. Bean worked as a research analyst for companies including Jupiter Communications and NASA before receiving her Masters of Library & Information Science in 2003 from the University of Rhode Island. Since 2004 she has been the Printed Collection Librarian at the Library of the Rhode Island Historical Society in Providence, responsible for preservation, cataloging and management of the extensive collection of early Rhode Island imprints, broadsides and rare books.

She is a member of the American Printing History Association and New England Archivists; and serves on the boards of the Rhode Island Library Association, R.I. Center for the Book, and the Friends of the Brown Library. Ms. Bean is a certified master craftsman in traditional hand bookbinding, having studied with Daniel Knowlton of Bristol, R.I.  

Jordan Goffin is the Special Collections Librarian of Providence Public Library. He has also held special collections positions at the University of Montana in Missoula and the Rhode Island Historical Society, where he created an online atlas of the Rhode Island book trade.

ADDITIONAL EVENTS

Thursday, August 18: Reception & Lecture by Russ DeSimone : 6:30 pm, Barnard Room: Sidney S. Rider of Providence - Bookman

Materials from the Library's Daniel Berkeley Updike History of Printing Collection will be on display in our 3rd floor Special Collections exhibit area.

Saturday, Sept. 17: Opening Reception & Lecture by Richard Greenwood

2:00 pm, Barnard Room

Size Matters: The Corliss Steam Engine and the Industrial Ingenuity of Providence
Please join us for an opening reception and opening talk to discover why Providence was once nicknamed “The Beehive of Industry.” Materials from the Library's collections, including historic photographs of the Corliss Steam Engine from the Rhode Island Collection, will be on display in our 3rd floor Special Collections exhibit area.

Signups closed for this Event