Keepers
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Tamsin Hollowell
Keeper of the Collections
Tamsin spent thirty years as an antiquarian bookseller before deciding she would rather keep books than sell them. One of the three founders, she decides what the Athenaeum accepts and writes most of the catalog notes on provenance and editions. Her own reading runs to Renaissance natural magic and the history of the book trade. She is at the desk on Saturdays.
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Desmond Varga-Lind
Cataloger
A retired public library cataloger and another of the founders, Desmond devised the Four Gates shelving scheme in 2019 and has cataloged more than nine thousand of our volumes by hand. He maintains the subject tree and the research guides, reads medieval Latin slowly, and is the person to ask about the Hermetic literature and the Picatrix. He is at the desk on Wednesdays.
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Miriam Kestrel
Keeper of Periodicals and Ephemera
The third founder, Miriam is a letterpress printer who has made and traded zines since the 1980s. She looks after the Waters: the journals, newsletters, flyers, and the correspondence that comes with them. She runs the cataloging days on the second Saturday of each month and teaches volunteers how to handle fragile paper. She is at the desk on the first Sunday of each month.
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Rafael Ibarra-Stone
Reading Room Steward
Rafael trained as a folklorist and joined the Athenaeum in 2017. He looks after the register and the reader tickets, trains the volunteers who help at the desk, and keeps the customs of the room. His particular interests are charm books, folk magic, and the cheap print through which most people actually met the grimoires. He is at the desk on Thursdays.
Trustees
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Dr. Imogen Pryce-Navarro
Trustee and Journal Editor
Imogen is a historian of religion in late antiquity whose research concerns the later Platonist philosophers and the ritual practice they called theurgy. She edits the Journal, reviews the research guides for accuracy, and advises on Greek and Latin material.
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Corwin Halloran
Trustee and Conservator
A bookbinder by trade, Corwin repairs what can be repaired and boxes what cannot. He advises givers on the condition of their books and leads a workshop each spring on simple, reversible repairs.
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Odalys Brennan-Wu
Trustee and Treasurer
Odalys has kept the accounts of the Athenaeum since 2014 and reads them aloud at the open meeting each November. A lifelong reader of the Christian mystics, she gave the East Gate two hundred of her own books and stayed to count the coffee tin.
In memory
The Athenaeum remembers Aurelio Farrow, a pharmacist and lifelong student of alchemy, whose library came to us in 2018 and whose penciled notes still argue from the margins of our alchemical shelves.
Join us
Volunteers are always needed for cataloging days, shelf reading, and the desk. No experience is required, only clean hands and patience. See Give Books or Time.