Introducing Me

As John Carter says « Every specialised profession or pursuit develops its own jargon, much of which is unintelligible to the layman » * and I am very excited to be learning all these terms related to books!

My name is Viviana Banaszak and I am a first year student in the master’s program for Rare Books and Digital Humanities at the University of Franche Comte.

My love for reading and libraries was the motivation for me to move to France from the USA and participate in this program.

A self proclaimed bookworm, I enjoy visits to libraries, institutions, artists’ studios, bookstores, and even book auctions. My knowledge on rare books has become more in depth and while simultaneously improving my IT skills. This program not only allows us as students to learn, for example, how to handle and describe rare books, but also how to design catalogs, create data bases and websites, and using open source or commercial softwares. Since most older rare books are in either Latin or Ancient Greek, the program also includes courses in both languages so we may be able to read and understand the general context.

I have found this program to be insightful and interesting. I look forward to completing the program and adding the tools and techniques I have learned here to my professional life.

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