Richard L. Saunders

Dr. Richard L. Saunders, social historian, academic librarian, and former Dean of Library Services at Southern Utah University, has been a student of print culture and book history for over two decades. Informed by activity as an amateur handset printer and craft bookbinder, his scope of interest includes papermaking, typography, printing, and both historical and descriptive bibliography. Dr. Saunders worked professionally on the production side of commercial publishing in the 1990s during the industry’s transition from filmsetting to direct-to-plate technology. His professional output includes Printing in Deseret: Mormons, Politics, Economics, and Utah’s Incunabula, 1849–1851 (Univ. of Utah Press, 2000), and Reams in the Desert: Papermaking in Utah, 1849–1893 (Legacy Press, 2021).

Richard is the author of The 1920 Edition of the Book of Mormon: A Centennial Adventure in Latter-day Saint Book History