Librarians and Artists on Jack Kerouac
Sponsored by The Grolier Club
Randy Gue, Michael Inman, Elizabeth Ott, and Carolyn Vega
A lively panel discussion with members of the NYPL’s Berg and Emory’s Rose Library, which both hold substantial repositories of Jack Kerouac material. Carolyn Vega and Michael Inman from NYPL and Elizabeth Ott and Randy Gue from Emory all have a tremendous experience in archiving and working with Jack Kerouac material. Discussion will center on special considerations for preserving and utilizing such material and general experiences with it in the course of their work.
Randy Gue is Assistant Director of Collection Development at the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University. Gue founded the Atlanta Punk Studies Seminar in 2023, and in his spare time, he plays in the city’s only wordcore band: El Matador. He has donated a personal collection of punk-rock memorabilia to Emory’s library, which created the seedbed of a new collection. His publications include “Modeling the History of the City” in Journal of Map & Geography Libraries.
Michael Inman is The New York Public Library’s Susan Jaffe Tane Curator of Rare Books, overseeing the collections of the Rare Book Division and the George Arents Collection of Tobacco and Books in Parts. In this capacity, he is responsible for departmental acquisitions as well as for promoting the collections through programming, classes, and media appearances. He has also curated a number of exhibitions, including Over Here: WWI and the Fight for the American Mind (2014), Walt Whitman: America’s Poet (2019), and Becoming Bohemia: Greenwich Village, 1912–1923 (2024). Beyond NYPL, Michael serves as a faculty member at Rare Book School, where he teaches courses on the history of printing and special collections curatorship. He holds an MA in English from the University of North Texas and an MLS from Pratt Institute.
Elizabeth Ott is the director of The Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University. Ott has had previous roles in rare book libraries, including at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her exhibitions include Lyric Impressions: Wordsworth in the Long Nineteenth Century which was presented at Wilson Special Collections Library at UNC Chapel Hill.Ott earned a PhD in English literature from the University of Virginia, a master’s degree in Victorian media and culture from Royal Holloway, University of London–Egham in the United Kingdom, and a bachelor’s degree in English and history from Agnes Scott College.
Carolyn Vega is the Curator of the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature at The New York Public Library, which holds the archives of Virginia Woolf, Jack Kerouac, and many others. She has organized a number of exhibitions, including on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Emily Dickinson, Tennessee Williams, the screenplays of James Ivory, and authors who have drawn their inspiration from the collections of the New York Public Library. She holds an MSLIS from Pratt Institute.