Aaron Pratt
Election
Position
Name
Aaron Pratt
Candidate statement
Aaron T. Pratt. Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Curator of Early Books and Manuscripts at The University of Texas's Harry Ransom Center.
A special collections curator with an English department affiliation, I am active in both the library and traditional academic worlds. And, perhaps inevitably, my work in each world is informed by the other. My publications on early modern literature and the history of book collecting increasingly depend on insights I have gleaned from my experiences as curator—leading me to be a broad advocate for the expertise of library and museum professionals—and I also use my research to inform new acquisitions, exhibitions, cataloging policies, public outreach, and more. My hope is to use a position on SHARP’s Board of Directors to make the organization an even better place for substantive collaborations between different pillars of the book world, including the trade. As cofounder of the Yale Program in the History of the Book, a founding member of the Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography, and a generally active participant within the bibliography and book history communities at conferences and on social media, I would be able to draw upon a broad network to solicit such collaborations and, in particular, to champion early career voices. I am already slated to run a SHARP-sponsored seminar at this year's Shakespeare Association of America conference and can report, without hyperbole, that the SHARP listserv has served as a lifeline since I first dared(!) to post back in 2009, while an MA student.
A special collections curator with an English department affiliation, I am active in both the library and traditional academic worlds. And, perhaps inevitably, my work in each world is informed by the other. My publications on early modern literature and the history of book collecting increasingly depend on insights I have gleaned from my experiences as curator—leading me to be a broad advocate for the expertise of library and museum professionals—and I also use my research to inform new acquisitions, exhibitions, cataloging policies, public outreach, and more. My hope is to use a position on SHARP’s Board of Directors to make the organization an even better place for substantive collaborations between different pillars of the book world, including the trade. As cofounder of the Yale Program in the History of the Book, a founding member of the Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography, and a generally active participant within the bibliography and book history communities at conferences and on social media, I would be able to draw upon a broad network to solicit such collaborations and, in particular, to champion early career voices. I am already slated to run a SHARP-sponsored seminar at this year's Shakespeare Association of America conference and can report, without hyperbole, that the SHARP listserv has served as a lifeline since I first dared(!) to post back in 2009, while an MA student.