Scholarships, Fellowships, and Awards
There are so many opportunities in the world of books, and so many generous awards — but often these get missed by those who would benefit from them the most. (And, shockingly, year after year, quite of few of them go unused.)
So here we're providing a clearinghouse for the various awards that come to our attention throughout the year. It's a motley list, and includes opportunities for rank newbies to advanced academics to established booksellers, with a little bit of everything in between.
And, it's very much a work in progress — if you know of an opportunity we've missed, pretty please, email us at Editor@BookFairs.Com to help us build the list!
The Bibliographical Society of America offers a variety of grants, prizes, scholarships, fellowships, and other study opportunites. The awards cover a wide variety of topics relating to bibliography — it's worth spending some time sorting through the possibilities!
Rare Book School offers a wide variety of classes at the University of Virginia, UPenn, in Washington D.C., New York, and elsewhere, and there are a whole slew of scholarship opportunities (14 at our last count!), offered directly through RBS and by outside sources as well.
The New York Academy of Medicine Library offers two history of medicine fellowships: the Paul Klemperer Fellowship in the History of Medicine, and the Audrey and William H. Helfand Fellowship in the History of Medicine and Public Health.
The American Antiquarian Society provides academics, independent scholars, and graduate students the opportunity to spend an uninterrupted block of time doing research in the AAS library. The fellowships range from short- and long-term research fellowships to one designated for creative and performing artists and writers.
The Binc Foundation and Macmillan offer professional development opportunities to booksellers who are underrepresented within the industry.
Formerly the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar, the non-profit ABS (often called "Boot Camp for Booksellers") offers more than 2 dozen scholarships each year, funded by 21 generous sponsors.