Feb 18, 2016 Welcoming New Assistant Director of Special Collections

We are delighted to welcome Todd Samuelson, Ph.D. as the new Assistant Director of Special Collections. Todd comes to us from the Cushing Memorial Library and Archives at Texas A&M University, where he served as Curator of Rare Books & Manuscripts and Director of the Book History Workshop.

Todd has a Bachelor of Arts Cum Laude in English from Brigham Young University, Master of Arts in English from Boston College, and a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from University of Houston.

Todd has a keen interest in book arts and letterpress printing. He has completed many trainings and workshops including “Vandercook Concentration: Mastering the Proof Press,” which was taught at the Arts Summer Institute at Wells College.In 2004, Cultural Arts Council of Houston and Harris County provided Todd with a $5,000 grant that funded the production of Amanuensis, a portfolio of seven letterpress broadsides, featuring his poetry and wood engraving. He exhibited this while giving a lecture about the visual representation of texts together with a reading of the work. He is also Founder and Facilitator of the Houston Book Arts Group.

Throughout Todd’s career, he has received many awards, published articles, and participated in research on various topics relating to American history, literature, and culture. Notably, Todd served as co-principal investigator in a $742,005 grant funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Led by Dr. Laura Mandell, Director, Initiative for Digital Humanities, Media, and Culture at Texas A&M University, the project is entitled “OCR’ing Early Modern Texts,” which sets out to train OCR engines to interpret English typography from 1476-1720, a period in which full-text databases are unable to provide indexing or searchability because of typographical barriers.

Todd’s knowledge and skills will be a great asset to Special Collections at the Marriott Library. Please join us in extending a wholehearted welcome to Todd.