Small BOA exhibit currently on display at the university’s Rush Rhees Library.
As BOA Editions looks ahead to its 40th anniversary in 2016, the University of Rochester is also reaffirming its belief in the importance of BOA’s history and future. In 2005, the university acquired BOA’s 1996-2005 publishing archives, which include materials related to the publication of BOA books and the organization’s general operations. In 2016, the university will make a Finding Aid for these holdings available online, which will enable scholars to search, utilize, and focus their research on particular pieces of the complete BOA Publishing Archives. BOA is also proud to announce that the university just this year acquired the press’ 2006-2016 archives, thus becoming the largest repository of BOA materials. This important connection between organizations will be celebrated on the university’s campus in 2016 with BOA displays and exhibits, classroom presentations, and a group reading featuring 40 representatives from both the university and BOA communities.
From March 7 through July 29, 2016, the University of Rochester will join in BOA’s 40th anniversary celebration with an exhibition entitled BOA Editions: 40 Years of Connecting Writers with Readers, which will be held in Rush Rhees Library’s Friedlander Lobby.
According to Phyllis Andrews, Manuscript Librarian and Curator of Modern Literature Collections at the university, “This retrospective will explore BOA’s evolution over the years through an extensive display of BOA volumes published between 1977 and 2015. Selected typescripts, book and cover designs, correspondence between authors and editors, and BOA publicity samples—all drawn from the archives of BOA Editions acquired by the River Campus Libraries beginning in 2005–will reveal the lifecycle through which poetry and literature move from submission to published work.”
A small BOA exhibit is currently on display on the 2nd floor of Rush Rhees Library, as part of the Rare Books and Special Collections Department’s 2014-2015 Recent Acquisitions exhibition.
BOA Publisher Peter Conners says, “Whether scholars are interested in a particular author or in the daily operations of a small press that has thrived in American letters for 40 years, the University of Rochester’s BOA Publishing Archives house a wealth of research materials. Given our place in Rochester’s cultural landscape and the University of Rochester’s status as a venerable institution of higher learning, I can’t imagine a better place for BOA’s history to be housed, shared, and safeguarded.”
