ABSTRACT The education and training of catalogers has been well documented in library literature. However, this literature has tended to focus on the general cataloger and not special collections or rare books catalogers. This article summarizes the results of a survey of current special collections and rare books catalogers on when they decided to enter this library specialization, what skills they needed to succeed, where they obtained those skills, and their opinions on formal versus informal training. The results have implications for those wishing to become a special collections and/or rare books cataloger, those who are already in the profession and being asked to take on special collections or rare books cataloging duties, and finally those who educate and train future specialist catalogers.