Book Arts & Bookbinding
Book illustration, and its sister craft, bookbinding, are 2,000-year-old art forms celebrating and enhancing the glories of the written word. Book illustration began with the invention of movable type around 1451. In an age when literacy was rare, the spectacle of filigreed letters, ornate bordering and fine art illustrations must have had enormous appeal to early readers. Bookbinding, or the art of creating protective and/or ornamental book covers, replaced scrolls in the early Christian era. During the Middle Ages, bookbinding evolved into a high craft, with covers boasting ornamental gems and finely tooled leather. Today's bookbinders are mainly restorers, trying to recreate with the aid of modern scientific techniques the hand-wrought 'objets d'art' of their early predecessors. The links included herein relate specifically to book arts and bookbinding.
Colophon.com: Center for the Book Arts: Paper, Art and the Book
This exhibition celebrates papermaking as an art form, featuring examples of fine paper and unusual uses of common paper.
Linda Hall Library, Kansas City, Missouri: Paper Dinosaurs
View the Linda Hall Collection, an exhibition of original publications in which Dinosaurs were illustrated from the 1824-1969.
Membrane.com: Miniature Book Society
Explore the world of publishing, authoring, illustrating, and collecting miniature books through this international organization.
Memorial University of Newfoundland, Saint John's: Canada: Alciato's Book of Emblems
From Andrea Alciato's 'Emblematum Liber', a searchable database of Emblems taken from 212 Latin emblem poems.
Rand Calligraphy and Book Arts Club, Santa Monica, California
This Santa Monica, California club offers classes and provides resources to calligraphers and features calligraphy-related links at their web site.
Rutgers University, Camden, New Jersey: New Jersey Book Arts Guide
Rutger's John Cotton Dana Library explores the Book Arts through its exhibit of essays on the topic.
Rutgers University, Camden, New Jersey: Pop-Up World of Ann Montanaro
In its first World-Wide-Web exhibition, Rutgers University Libraries presents a collection of pop-up and moveable books.
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: Science Exhibitions
Art and Science meet in this celebration of the creativity of scientific research. Features artists books inspired by the 'Heralds of Science' Collection of the Smithsonian Institution.
Stanford University, Stanford, California: Guild of Book Workers
The charter of this national, non-profit association includes all aspects of bookmaking, from papermaking to bookbinding.
University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa: Paper and Book Intensive
This ten-day retreat includes classes and workshops in all aspects of the book arts, including conservation, papermaking, binding decoration, and other topics of interest.
University of Delaware, Newark: Color Printing in the Nineteenth Century
The Morris Library of the University of Delaware presents and exhibition of Intaglio and Relief Processes, Lithography, and Nature Printing.
University of Iowa, Iowa City: Bookbinding Tutorial
Learn how to preserve the content of pulp paperbacks, manuscripts, and other printed matter.
University of Oxford, England, United Kingdom: Bodleian Library Image Catalog
View Images from the collection of manuscript holdings of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, U.K.
Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts: Women in the Book Arts: A Selection
An exhibition of the work of today's female book artists. Examine fine examples of letterpress printing and hand decoration of paper and bindings.