unforth | Because two people have asked already.... (Reply)

Here are the potential schools:
University of Texas at Austin - Kilgarin Institute: A two year program which offers a certificate in Conservation. Less focused in book binding. Pretty much the only program of it's kind in the country.
West Dean University in Sussex, England: While it's totally awesome, really interesting and right up my alley, Jonie would have to be quarantined for 6 months, and the program is only a year long, which is distinctly problematic.
North Bennet Street School, Boston: My first choice, they offer a two year bench apprenticeship in bookbinding (40 hours a week of one-on-one training). They only accept 6 students a year, but my understanding is they only get about 35-40 applications, so it's not that bad.
The University of Alabama: They offer a BFA in Book Arts. It's a batchelors, which sort of sucks. It's in Alabama, which sucks more. Still, it's a possibility.
Center for Book Arts, University of Iowa: A nice and interesting program; my internship advisor's girlfriend works there.
The Oregon College of Art and Craft, Portland: A three year program that focuses more on art, this one is also fairly high on the list though I don't know that much about it.

Book arts aren't quite the same thing as bookbinding; book arts are for artist books, not conservation. Does that make sense? Anyway, I'm less interested in it; furthermore, usually one needs a background in art (like a BFA....) in order to do this. So basically, there aren't that many actual choices up there. Pretty much only four in my opinion - Austen, Boston, Oregon, and Iowa. England would be awesome but for the pup...

I'm sure I'll be writing more on this in the future, but since I need to start thinking about it anyway, I figured I'd write up this synopsis. I have a few other related links in my delicious farm... ;)