This past quarter, Public Services Assistant Zayda Delgado received word that she had received a scholarship from the National Endowment for the Humanities-Global Book Histories Initiative (NEH-GBHI) to attend Rare Book School at Amherst College during summer 2018.

Rare Book School (RBS) is an independent institute housed at the University of Virginia that provides continuing education and community-building opportunities through hands-on, seminar-style classes taught by distinguished faculty.

At RBS, Delgado will take a course called A History of Native American Books & Indigenous Sovereignty.

Delgado applied to the program for personal and professional development, but also with the purpose of sharing her knowledge here at UCR. “We have a significant collection of Native American books, particularly on California’s first people,” she explained.

“This award presents an opportunity for Zayda to develop her skill sets in culturally diverse book collections,” said Tiffany Moxham, Assistant University Librarian for Collections. “It also ties into our initiatives to support the documentation and research support of our local communities, which are manifested in such initiatives as Inland Empire Memories.”

This will be Delgado’s second time attending Rare Book School. She first received a fellowship in 2016, along with a group of 20 fellows. That year, she took the course History of the Book 200-2000, which was taught jointly by John Buchtel, Director of the Booth Family Center for Special Collections at Georgetown University and Mark Dimunation, the Chief of Rare Books at the Library of Congress. “He gave us a behind-the-scenes tour,” Delgado said. “I got to hold the rarest and most precious materials that they have at the Library of Congress.”

Traditionally, scholarships are reserved for those who have not previously attended Rare Book School. Coordinator of Scholarships Danielle Culpeper encouraged Delgado’s group to apply for the NEH-GBHI fellowship because it was open to people who had attended RBS before.

“It’s just so fun, the opportunity to go back to RBS. It’s like a summer camp for people who really love books,” Delgado explained. “From the time you wake up in the morning until the time you go to bed at night, you’re learning something new every minute. It’s really exciting for me, so I’m really looking forward to that.”