Between 1972 and 1992, he devised and ran a master's program for the training of rare book librarians and antiquarian booksellers at the Columbia University School of Library Service.

He has degrees from Haverford College (A.B., 1963) and from Columbia University (M.A., 1964; Ph.D., 1970), where he studied under James L. Clifford, Allen T. Hazen, and John H. Middendorf.

Between 1966 and 1971, while working on his dissertation on aspects of the 18th-century London book trade, he taught advanced prose composition courses at the Columbia University School of General Studies, an activity leading to the 1972 publication of The Art of Persuasion, a writing manual co-authored with J.

[17] Student had considerable independence[18] in how they constructed their exhibitions, whose subjects ranged from Armed Services Editions[19] to Thomas Jefferson and Monticello ephemera.

The exhibition received extensive press coverage, including a review in The Wall Street Journal[25] and a full-page review by Roberta Smith in The New York Times,[26] who noted that "it is rare to see such a dense and illuminating treatment of the cabinets’ proliferation, popularity and evolution, and fascinating that it can be done so well through a display limited to their bibliographic byproducts."