It was announced in March that Joel Silver was appointed as Director of one of the country's foremost rare book libraries, Indiana University's Lilly Library. The Lilly Library houses over 400,000 rare books, 150,000 pieces of sheet music, and 7.5 million manuscripts. Some of the highlights include the New Testament of the Gutenberg Bible; the first printed edition of Canterbury Tales; George Washington's letter accepting the presidency; and the personal papers of Orson Welles and Sylvia Plath.

Silver has been with the Lilly Library since 1983, working in a number of different capacities: operations manager, curator of books, associate director to former Lilly director Breon Mitchell, and interim director for two independent appointments. He is also an adjunct associate professor and director of the special collections specialization in the IU School of Library and Information Science and an adjunct faculty member in the Department of English.

Silver has also published a great number of articles, books, and exhibition catalogs; he lectures at and leads rare books seminars; and he has curated exhibitions at the Lilly Library. His most recent book, Dr. Rosenbach and Mr. Lilly: Book Collecting in a Golden Age, was published by Oak Knoll Press, which is owned and operated by ABAA member Robert D. Fleck.

"I'm honored to have the opportunity to serve as the director of the Lilly Library, one of the greatest repositories of rare books and manuscripts in the world," Silver said. "The Lilly Library is known internationally for its broad and deep collections in many different subject areas, as well as for its commitment to serve all who wish to use them. I'm looking forward to continuing to build these collections, and to taking advantage of emerging technologies to help make them available to new audiences around the world."