The Lilly Fellowship Program: Training for Rare Book Librarians

Abstract

Rollo G. Silver, in his “The Training of Rare Book Librarians,” published in 1961, surveyed the need for competent rare book librarians, and commented on the inability of library schools to provide adequate training for those entering the field.1 During the same year, the Lilly Library of Indiana University began a program intended to help alleviate this problem and provide intensive practice and instruction to prospective rare book and manuscript librarians. The Lilly Library Fellowship Program was operated throughout most of the 1960s and provided training and experience to fourteen librarians, who, it was hoped, would go on to work . . .