Professional Experience

Martha W. Driver, PhD, FSA, was recently elected to the Executive Committee of the American Trust for the British Library. She also serves on the events committee of the ATBL as well as on the board of the American Patrons for the National Library and Galleries of Scotland and as chair of the Early Book Society.

 For the 59th International Congress of Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, in May, she organized eight sessions (Women’s Books: Owners, Makers, Patrons; Prognostication, Palliation, and Prayer from Manuscript to Print;  Approaches to a Miscellany: NLW Brogyntyn MS ii.1;  Old Books, New Technologies; Old Wine, New Skins I: Manuscripts and Books Adapted, Emended, Repurposed;  Old Wine, New Skins II: Editions; Interpreting Inventories (1): Ideas of the Inventory; and Interpreting Inventories (2): Recovering Communities). She also gave a lecture, “’The labour of olde astrologiens’: Looking Again at the Kalender of Shepherds,” organized the speakers’ dinner and ran the Early Book Society business meeting at this conference. On return to New York, she proposed six sessions for the Sixtieth ICMS in May 2025. In August, she is co-chair and co-organizer of “Women in Late Medieval Britain: Makers, Patrons, and Readers,” the Harlaxton conference to be held at Madingley Hall, Cambridge University, https://harlaxton.org.uk/harlaxton-medieval-symposium-2024/.

Moderated a “State-of-the-Field” Symposium at the Grolier Club in New York, titled Women Medievalists on Medieval Women, which was held both virtually and in person. This symposium celebrated the British Library’s upcoming exhibition, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words, opening on October 25, 2024, and the Library's longstanding support for scholarship on women’s experiences during the medieval and early modern periods, along with the Library’s medieval and Renaissance digitization project of volumes, charters and rolls owned by or pertaining to medieval women. This presentation has had the highest impact of any program launched by the ATBL this year both in attendance and in its vimeo presence. A vimeo can be viewed on the Early Book Society site: earlybooksociety.org