Jason Dean Awarded IMLS-RBS Fellowship for Early Career Librarians

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Jason W. Dean, assistant librarian and head of the special formats unit at the University of Arkansas Libraries

Jason W. Dean, assistant librarian and head of the special formats unit at the University of Arkansas Libraries, has just been awarded an IMLS-RBS Fellowship for early career librarians. From a pool of more than 100 applicants, Dean is one of 20 recipients selected for this first group of fellows. 

Created by the Rare Book School with a grant from the Institute of Library and Museum Services, this fellowship provides each recipient the opportunity to attend a free course at Rare Book School and receive a year’s membership in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association. The fellowship also affords a stipend to help cover the costs of travel and housing at the Rare Book School and the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section conference.

Rare Book School, located at the University of Virginia, supports the study of book and manuscript history, with a focus on these items as material objects.

“Rare Book School is the premier academy in the world where people come to study everything from medieval manuscripts to born-digital objects,” says Michael F. Suarez, director of the Rare Book School and University Professor of English at the University of Virginia.

Each year, the Rare Book School offers more than 30 courses that cover diverse aspects of rare books and manuscripts – from their history to their identification and description. These courses draw a diverse segment of scholars, from librarians and archivists to book sellers, collectors, and conservators.

Special collections and rare books librarianship is a highly specialized and competitive discipline, but Dean’s interests and accomplishments gave him an edge in the competition. He published the first scholarly work on the collection of 19th century American color plate books at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the largest collection of this type anywhere in the world. Dean’s research described the acquisition of this collection by noted Americana bookseller William Reese. His work also presented a history of color printing in the United States in the 19th century, tracing this history through titles in the collection itself.

In the letter informing Dean of his fellowship, Suarez noted: “Many excellent applications were received and the competition for places was keen. … The selection committee was genuinely impressed by your application materials, which suggest a career of great promise.”

Building upon what he learns at Rare Book School, Dean seeks to continue researching books that are uniquely American artifacts as well as rare books and book history more broadly. His current research with Sarah Burke Cahalan, special projects and reference librarian at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., is about a largely unknown botanical and scientific artist named S. Fred Prince. For several years of his life, Prince lived near Marvel Cave in Branson, Missouri, mapping the caverns, in addition to studying the flora and fauna of the area.

Dean and Cahalan presented their early research on Prince in 2014 at the annual RBMS conference in Las Vegas. In addition to his research in rare books, Dean’s research seeks to emphasize the primacy of the user and the book as physical object in libraries, as well as helping users of the catalog discover these significant resources through the advent of linked open data in libraries. Dean is also exploring the role of user-centered design in both library catalogs and library metadata.

Dean received a Bachelor of Behavioral Sciences in history cum laude from Hardin-Simmons University and a Master of Science in library and information science from Syracuse University. Prior to joining the University Libraries in 2013, he was cataloger and technical services librarian at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.