Amanda Styles earned her Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) from UCLA’s Information Studies Department and CMRS Center for Early Global Studies Certificate in Global Medieval Studies in June 2025. She also holds a Highest Honors BA in English with a minor in Medieval Studies from UC Berkeley (2022).
Throughout her MLIS program, Amanda specialized in Rare Books / Print and Visual Culture, with a particular interest in the provenance, curation, and accessibility of medieval manuscripts and incunabula. Under the direction of CalRBS Director and IS Associate Professor, Robert Montoya, Amanda wrote her master’s thesis entitled, “Who Handles Medieval Manuscripts? Institutional Gatekeeping & the Guise of Growing Access.” This work explores the often ritualistic and participatory handling of medieval manuscripts within their original context in juxtaposition with modern practices imposed in special collections reading rooms, while questioning the accessibility and bias of library request systems and the digital facsimiles that institutions push as substitution for physical handling. In September of 2025, Amanda will be starting a second subject masters in Medieval Studies through the University of York where she was offered an Academic Excellence scholarship through their Centre for Medieval Studies. Amanda aspires to work in a university special collections/rare book libraries as a curator/instructional librarian and is entertaining future education at the doctoral level.