Sometimes a required course, more often an elective, it was taught by the first two Deans, Winifred Barnstead and Bertha Bassam, until the early sixties when Marion Brown, the university's rare book librarian, took it over for a decade. No longer a chronology of great books printed at important presses, the course now includes studies of readers, workers, and technology, as well as an investigation of primary sources for book history. At the founding conference in Ottawa last spring speakers included two recent FIS graduates, Grant Campbell and Margaret Williams, as well as professor emerita Francess Halpenny and Patricia Fleming, chair of the organizing committee. A number of FIS students also attended the conference. The posters reported on the work of doctoral students in various stages of their programs ranging from initial proposals to final results.
FIS students have a starring role in many of the pictures.
Copies of the issue are available at the desk in the FIS Inforum. The stereotype of a public librarian who helps people find print resources is wrong. It seems that my time at FIS is spent divided between sitting in class and sitting in front of the computer. So it is no small coincidence that in preparing for this article I didn't get a chance to sit down with Dan Scott to discuss his position as President of the FIS Student Council face to face. Instead, we traded E-mail.