Ascher elected to book society

Ascher

James P. Ascher of the Boulder Libraries was elected a member of the Grolier Club, the largest and oldest society in the United States for bibliographically oriented enthusiasts.
Nominations are based on a candidate's personal and/or professional commitment to books, as demonstrated through outstanding activity as a collector, antiquarian book dealer, rare book librarian, or some other bookish pursuit.

As rare books librarian at the University Libraries, Ascher managed the donation of more than 1,700 items from the late Calvin Otto and led the editing of the catalog. He also teaches courses on book history and workshops for faculty members in English literature, art history, journalism, and other departments.

He founded ScriptaLab, an initiative of the University Libraries that aims to weave together the scholarly threads that address text and media as a cultural artifact and as a means of communication and to explore the relationship between print and digital formats with fresh approaches to book history and comparative media. Since its inception in 2009, ScriptaLab has sponsored more than nine events that situated the historical book within contemporary media issues, available on YouTube and at http://www.scriptalab.org/.