Julia D. Blakely

Rare Book Catalog Librarian

Julia Blakely has undergraduate and master's degrees in art history from the George Washington University and a M.S., with a specialization in rare books, from Columbia University. For many years she was a lab instructor at Rare Book School at the University of Virginia (formerly at Columbia) and currently serves on its William T. Buice Scholarship Committee. She is the co-chair of the Smithsonian's Material Culture Forum. Julia wrote the bibliographical descriptions for An Oak Spring Flora (1997) and has worked with several other private collections.

Her interests, both active and in reading, include sailing, maritime history, gardening, landscape architecture, cooking and baking, D.C. history, and running. She often blogs about this variety of subjects based on the collections in the Smithsonian Libraries. Julia is a member of the West River Sailing Club in Maryland and is the owner of a Melonseed skiff, Watermelon.