The Book Arts Lab serves as a hub for book arts outreach and the creation of artists’ books on campus. The space also functions as the library’s conservation lab, where in-house repairs are completed on books and paper-based objects from the general collection and Unique Collections.

The vision for the Book Arts Lab is to:

• Support active, embodied learning experiences in bookbinding, letterpress printing, and papermaking on campus
• Serve as a working model of historical and contemporary book arts practices and an experiential space for learning the history and craft of book arts
• Inspire learning and creativity for the entire campus and students of all disciplines by providing a space where the Wesleyan community can experiment and create projects rooted in the materiality of the book
• Serve as the conservation lab to Wesleyan’s libraries, committed to preserving our collections and actively engaging with preservation-related outreach

The Book Arts Lab offers class collaborations, open book arts workshops, and advising on independent student, faculty, and staff projects. We welcome all members of the Wesleyan community to utilize the lab to learn about book arts.

Book arts often defies precise definition. In short, the term ‘book arts’ refers to all of the crafts that go into the making of a book – bookbinding, letterpress printing, and papermaking being the three most common, but can also include printmaking (lithography, screenprinting, intaglio, and relief), digital book design and printing, stenciling, paper engineering, hand lettering and calligraphy, photography, painting and drawing, and sculptural or altered bookwork.

Artists’ books are works of art that take the form of a book or are inspired by the form of the book. They use the book as a medium to convey meaning or reference the book form in their artistic delivery. You may also see these works referred to as bookworks, book objects, and artists books (no apostrophe).

See examples of Artists' Books in Special Collections