2026 RGME Colloquium
at The Grolier Club

“Transformations and Renewals”
Examining and Celebrating
Treasures of the Grolier Club Library

Wednesday 11 February 2026 (Hybrid, in Two Events)
Workshop + Roundtable

[Posted on 15 January 2026, with updates
Now see also the 2026 RGME Colloquium at The Grolier Club: Report]

For the Year 2026, the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence chooses the Theme of “Transformations and Renewals” for exploration across its activities and projects.

Our first hybrid event of the year brings the RGME to The Grolier Club of the City of New York, in central Manhattan, for a curated set of hybrid events on Wednesday 11 February 2026. In keeping with the RGME’s dedication to accessibility for events reaching a wider audience, these events will be available both in person and online. For registration for the different events and functionalities (in person or online), see below.

With registration beforehand (see below), the day’s events comprise:

• a “Show-Off-and-Tell” Workshop in the afternoon
  2:30–4:30 pm EST (GMT-4)
  1) online open to the public
  2) in person privately with limited seating, open for Grolier Club Members and RGME invited guests
• a “Transformations and Renewals” Roundtable in the early evening
  6:00–7:30 pm EST
  open to the public
  1) online and
  2) in person

We gather a team of specialists, collectors, and curators of books — all Grolier Club Members and mostly RGME Associates— to examine, reflect on, and celebrate selected treasures of the Grolier Club Library. On offer: reports and conversations about research discoveries, work-in-progress, and the joys of experiencing the materials directly and also sharing their stories. Join us!

Program

For information about the scope of the event, its Participants, its two parts as Workshop and Roundtable, and Registration for each part, see below. Both parts are hybrid, through the RGME for the Workshop and through the Grolier Club for the Roundtable.

The Program for both the afternoon Workshop and early-evening Roundtable can now be downloaded as a 4-page

Program Booklet, set in RGME Bembino.

• 2026 RGME Colloquium at the Grolier Club: Program

Posters

Both Posters for this bipartite event can be downloaded:

• 2026 RGME Colloquium at the Grolier Club: Poster 1
• 2026 RGME Colloquium at the Grolier Club: Poster 2

Colloquium Booklet

We offer the 64-page illustrated Colloquium Booklet as a guide and souvenir for the event. You may download it here, in two formats according with your printing and viewing preferences.

• 2026 RGME Colloquium Booklet: Pages (as a series of individual pages on 8 1/2″ × 11″ sheets)
• 2026 RGME Colloquium Booklet: Foldable Booklet (laid out for printing on 11″ × 17″ sheets, ready for folding)

Speakers and Panelists

Speakers with comments at the afternoon workshop over original materials and/or with lightning talks at the early-evening roundtable:

• Jamie Elizabeth Cumby (Grolier Club Librarian)
  “ ‘Show-Off-and Tell’: A Curated Selection from the Grolier Club Library”
• Beppy Landrum Owen (also Oral History Project: Beppy Landrum Owen)
  “ ‘That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once. . .’
  Lost Stories of the Making of the Bremer Presse’s 1934 (but 1935) Vesalian Icones anatomicae”
• John T. McQuillen (Morgan Library & Museum, Associate Curator of Printed Books & Bindings)
  “Blockbooks Dismembered”
  Note:
  Watch for the coming exhibition at the Morgan later this year:
  “Late Medieval European Blockbooks: The First Printed Picture Books” (6 November 2026 to 16 May 2027)
• Mildred Budny (Director of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)
  “A Medieval Missal Fragment from the Otto F. Ege Collection and its Provenance”
  Note:
  “Break-Up Books and Make-Up Books: Encountering and Reconstituting the Legacy of Otto F. Ege and Other Bibliocasts” (See 2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium on Fragments)
• Reid Byers (Reid Byers, Author)
  “Secrets in Secrets in Secrets”
  Note:
  Reid Byers, Imaginary Books: Lost, Unfinished, and Fictive Works Found Only in Other Books (Oak Knoll Press and Le Club Fortsas, 2024)
• Richard Kopley (Distinguished Professor of English, Emeritus, Penn State DuBois, and Author)
  “William Gowans, New York Bookman and Poe Family Boarder”
  Note:
  Richard Kopley, Edgar Allan Poe: A Life (2024)
• Mark Samuels Lasner (Mark Samuels Lasner)
  “A Gift from William Morris to the Grolier Club”
  Note:
  Wilhelm Meinhold, Sidona the Sorceress (Kelmscott Press, 1893), translated by “Francesca Speranza” / Jane Francesca Agnes Wilde, Lady Wilde—a novel drawn from the life of the Pomeranian noblewoman Sidonia von Borcke (1548–1620), accused of witchcraft and executed.
• Mary Crawford (Co-Curator, current exhibition at the Grolier Club; Bio)
  “From ‘By a Lady’ to Global Superstar: Curating 250 Years of Jane Austen”
  Note:
  Grolier Club Exhibition. “Paper Jane” (to 14 February 2026)
  Online exhibition. Exhibition Gallery
  Online curators’ tour. Tour of Paper Jane
  Catalogue. Catalogue

Presider/Moderator for Roundtable

• Anna Siebach–Larson

Book-Signings at Roundtable for Grolier Authors’ Publications

• Reid Byers, Mary Crawford, Richard Kopley, and Mark Samuels Lasner

 

We look forward to welcoming you!

Registration for the 2 Hybrid Events

We give information for
I. the evening Roundtable first,
II. then the afternoon Workshop.

I. Hybrid Roundtable in the Grolier Club Exhibition Hall
6:00 to 7:30 pm EST (GMT-4)

Open to the public both in-person and online
Book-signings available

Registration through the Grolier Club

• Grolier Club: Eventbrite

Overview

Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, a Princeton-based 501(c)(3) educational organization, will visit the Grolier Club for an in-person/hybrid ‘Roundtable’. In lightning talks, several Club members will discuss a curated selection of books, manuscripts, and prints on the RGME’s 2026 organizational theme of “Transformations and Renewals. Open to the public, this event will be live-streamed and will offer book-signings for Club member guides who have recently published works discussed.

Registration for the Roundtable
Virtual or In-Person Attendance

II. Hybrid “Show-Off-and-Tell” Workshop upstairs
preceding the Roundtable
2:30 to 4:30 pm EST (GMT-4)
with Break at 3:15–3:30 pm

Open to the public online;
In-person seats limited, for Grolier Members and invited RGME Guests

Registration through the RGME

• RGME Eventbrite Collection

Overview

As a prelude to the Roundtable on “Transformations and Renewals”, Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence and Grolier Club Members will have a hybrid “Show-Off-and-Tell’ Workshop to examine, up close, the original materials (as book, manuscript, print) to be discussed further at the evening Roundtable in lightning talks. The curated selections comprise favorites from the Grolier Club Library which have given rise to detailed study and discoveries for them and their contexts.

Like our pair of hybrid workshops recently over original manuscript and printed materials in Special Collections at the Princeton University Library, held by our Associate Eric White at the 2025 RGME Colloquium on Fragments, this hybrid workshop will take place over original materials at the Grolier Club, guided by the Librarian Jamie Cumby (see also Jamie Cumby).

We gather to share experiences of delight and wonder, to celebrate the joys of learning from original materials at the Club and their relatives in other collections, especially in combination, to learn more about the rich range of the Grolier Club Library, and to give thanks for responsible access to it and for its curators. Open to the public online and to an invited audience in person (limited seating), this event will be accessible widely by interactive Zoom Meeting.

Speakers (in order of presentation):
Jamie Elizabeth Cumby, Beppy Landrum Owen, John T. McQuillen, Mildred Budny, Reid Byers, Richard Kopley, and Mark Samuels Lasner

1) ONLINE (Open to the public)

• • Workshop Online: Registration
    Note that, after you register, the RGME will send you the Zoom Link a day or so before the event. For security, the Zoom Link will be sent to you by the RGME, and NOT Eventbrite or Zoom.

2) IN-PERSON (Space is limited, by invitation)

• • “Show-Off-and-Tell” Workshop IN PERSON for Speakers, Grolier Members, and Invited Guests: Registration
    In case of demand, we offer a Waiting List.

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We look forward to welcoming you to the special visit to the Grolier Club, whether you can attend in person or online!