Rare Books Spotlight Series highlights Orwell’s “1984”

FROM BOOKS PAGE 2 current and past faculty members and librarians trying to piece together the story of rare books at Mary Washington,” he said. “Tying documents in the university archives to the actual reminiscences of these people, who have given kindly of their time, has been great. I have also enjoyed working with Nick Onorato.”

As the project has progressed, Onorato has gotten more comfortable with the process of creating content.

“I feel like I’m more on top of things,” said Onorato. “After the first video I’ve been really in the groove. Honestly it’s kind of fun—I think this semester working on these projects I’ve gotten a lot of practice in with Adobe, and I feel really confident in the program. It’s also pretty cool to just hang out with Dr. Barrenechea.”

A year ago, Barrenechea was awarded the William Reese Fellowship at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley for his research project on rare books: An Intellectual History of Literature of the Americas.

Onorato encouraged students to visit the library’s special collection, as it offers more than rare books.

“Definitely come check it out, it’s really cool,” said Onorato. “Even if you’re not into antique books or old collections, you can look at the previous UMW student newspaper archives if you want to do a project on the school’s history.”

Barrenechea highlighted the beauty of printed texts.

“The connection with William Reese, a preeminent bookseller at Yale University—where I received my Ph.D. in comparative literature—inspired me to do more with our own rare books at Mary Washington,” he said.