What's Next for the Artists' Books Collection?

      Over the course of the last year, I have worked on creating a collection inventory of the artists' books collection at UNCG. The resulting product is meant to be a living document--one that is reviewed and updated regularly with new acquisitions or transfers from circulating collections in Jackson Library.

     The collection inventory, provided the necessary data to conduct an initial analysis of the collection strengths and gaps. That investigation has informed an Artists' Books Collection Development Policy. A collection development policy can describe the history of a collection, how it is used and by whom, as well as guide staff in making acquisition decisions. 

     Historically, collection decisions may have been guided by a desire to complete a collection of an artist's work, to support curriculum or instruction, or simply because an artist's book was remarkable in its production or content. Though those are all valid reasons for acquisitions decisions, the policy will help home in on what our priorities should be.

A pop-up exhibition of items from the
Artists' Books Collection, 2019

     The collection is regularly used in instructional sessions with classes, such as creative writing, history, and studio art. It is also frequently used in exhibitions as well as being available for onsite research for individuals, classes, or other researchers interested in the collection. Understanding how the collection has been used historically has informed the collection development policy as well as a list of recommendations for increasing the discoverability and findability of the collection and expanding the use of the collection.

     Despite the variety of artists’ books specimens already in the collection, the primary focus for building the collection is to select artists’ books that support the curriculum and instruction of UNCG students and to align with other collecting strengths within Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA). As UNCG began as a college for women, some of those strengths include the history of women in the military, women’s literature, Home Economics pamphlets and cookbooks, as well as physical education and performing arts among others. SCUA has also prioritized collecting examples of a variety of binding and printing methods. 

     Moving forward, in addition to the prior listed categories, new acquisitions will focus on artists or authors from North Carolina or subject matter related to North Carolina. Likewise, SCUA is committed to building a more diverse and inclusive collection of artists and authors represented in the Artists’ Books Collection, including those of any race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation.

     The acquisition decisions are made collaboratively with the SCUA Department Head, the Rare Books Specialist, and other library faculty and staff with relevant expertise. Periodically, artists’ books may be identified among Jackson Library’s circulating collections and transferred to SCUA to become part of the Artists’ Books Collection, as noted in an earlier blog post.

Ellen Knudsen's work for CAUSE:EFFECT,
a collaborative book project exhibited in 2019

     Although SCUA endeavors to represent a broad range of examples of artists’ books, the nature of the field of artists’ books is quite expansive and we are unable to adequately represent books of every type and category. In spite of this, there are very few items we will not consider for the collection. Those include books containing hate speech or related offensive contents, those of questionable structure or materials that may be challenging to preserve or store, or those that are simply too costly for us.

     In addition to building the collection, SCUA is exploring ways to increase the visibility of the collection through various methods, such as outreach events, exhibitions, or modifying descriptions of artists' books in our online catalog to improve search results. Likewise, we will continue to investigate methods of increasing the use of the collection, such as creating a visual reference guide to the collection or creating lists of titles related to various subjects or other characteristics. For example, creating a list of titles about nature or a list of books using a certain binding or printing method. In any case, the goal is to make it easier to find and enjoy the artists' books collection at UNCG. We look forward to being able to welcome visitors in to see the artists' books collection in person once pandemic restrictions have lifted and it is safe to do so. 

Making a List and Checking it Twice: Collection Composition and Analysis

     Over the last year, I have been taking inventory of the artists' books collection. It might seem like an inventory list should have already existed or that there should at least be an easy way to assemble one from the library's catalog. It is unfortunately a little more complicated than that for a number of reasons, perhaps most salient is that not all of the artists' books specimens are cataloged as such.

The LOC Genre/Form Term for Arists' Books was created in 2017

     As mentioned previously, it is possible to search for artists' books in the library's catalog by using the Library of Congress (LC) Subject Headings listed in each catalog entry. If you locate one artist's book, you can use the LC subject headings to link to other books of the same type or subject. That said, there are some glitches in trying to locate the books this way. See my previous post for an explanation of artists' books versus artists' books specimens. Another example is that the artists' books genre heading only came into being in 2017. Artists' books were being collected at UNCG for decades before the artists' books genre heading was created so many books did not receive the designation. And, since there is a great deal of debate about what defines an artist's book some may be listed under other subject headings, such as poetry, children's literature, etc. Our fantastic cataloging team have worked hard to update records as needed, but to retroactively ensure all entries have this genre heading could be very time consuming. The collection inventory I have created may be a great resource for updating those records eventually, perhaps it would be a great project for an intern. 

A few rows of the collection inventory spreadsheet

     The collection inventory began with creating a spreadsheet. One goal was to capture relevant bibliographical information, such as the titles, book artists or authors, publication dates, etc. To increase the usefulness of the inventory, it was also important to capture a list of the physical characteristics and subjects of each book. Physical characteristics included the bookbinding and printing methods used, but I was also able to note any needed repairs or other unique characteristics. In many cases, the subjects of books were already collected as part of the description in the catalog entry. Yet, if the subject was not immediately clear to the cataloger through the book itself, such as in a colophon or associated descriptive materials, no subject is listed. Likewise, there is often the consideration that by including such details in a catalog entry, it may influence or preempt a reader's experience of the artist's book. As this collection is regularly used to support instructional sessions with classes, it was important for the inventory to include at least general references to the subject matter in the books. For example, if I were sharing books with a creative writing class, I might want to be able to pull titles related to their course content, such as poetry, or to pull examples of a specific format, such as chapbooks.

Discussing chapbooks with Creative Writing graduate students

     Once the inventory was created it was time to check the list and determine the collection's strengths and better define its focus. It is important to note that the collection inventory should be considered a living document as it will never really be finished. Additional discoveries may be made of artists' books already in the collection or, in the case of new acquisitions, the list will need to be updated regularly. The ultimate goal is to use the inventory analysis to inform a collection development policy for this collection. Kathelene McCarty Smith, Interim Head of SCUA, sometimes refers potential acquisitions of artists' books as "a box of puppies", meaning that there is often so much to love about them that it can be a challenge to make selections. For that reason, it is important to have a collection development policy to drive decision making around new acquisitions rather than buying every "adorable puppy" that comes along, which would be easy to do if funding sources were infinite. 

     Using the spreadsheet as a sorting tool, the list of artists' books specimens were sorted in several different ways to achieve a rough assessment of collection strengths. For instance, when sorting by publication date, it was easier to determine how many books were created in a certain decade. Or, when sorting by artist or author, it was clear which artists were more heavily represented in the collection. Using this method, the following strengths surfaced:

Sorting by publication date revealed which time
periods are best represented in the collection

     When sorted by publication dates in decades, our two strongest are not surprisingly the 1990s and 2000s. We have a good number in the 1960s and 1970s and fall off a bit in the 1980s. The spread of publication dates overall definitely follows along with the history of making in the field of artists' books. The most represented artists or authors represented in the collection were Amos P. Kennedy (Jubalee/Jubilee/Kennedy & Sons Press), Ed Hutchins (Editions Press), Lois Morrison, and Morris Cox (Gogmagog Press). Janus Press (Claire Van Vliet) and Flying Fish Press (Julie Chen) are also fairly well represented. The split between male and female artists represented in the collection was nearly even. There were several collaborations between both male and females as well as a few artists whose gender is unknown/unidentified, so this category is obviously somewhat problematic, and possibly unnecessary, to define.

     As for binding method or structure, accordions, miniatures, pamphlets, codices, sculptural book works, and toy/movable books are well represented. The most represented printing methods were letterpress and offset, though there are several hand printed methods used that were difficult to confidently identify when conducting the inventory. Suffice it to say, there is a lot of variety of the printing methods used in the collection.

Diaries by Dieter Roth (Image: Yale Books)
Letters, correspondence, and diaries are
common subjects of the artists' books collection

     And finally, there are many titles that overlap more than one subject area, but the following categories surfaced most commonly:

• proverbs/folk tales/folklore/mythology
• poetry
• women/gender issues
• social or political issues/war
• death
• animals/nature/seasons
• letters/correspondence/diaries
• maps/navigation/world

     The next step in this process will be to draft the Artists' Books Collection Development Policy. If you would like to continue to read along, please subscribe to this blog by clicking the link in the sidebar.

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Bradley, F. (Ed.). (2012, September 25). Dieter Roth: Diaries. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300185492/dieter-roth.