As a life-long academic, obviously I love information, but when it comes to books it's really the container that interests me. I started out as a medieval historian and I specialized in late antiquity: the transition from Roman imperial culture to the new medieval culture. Since the codex was invented in that period, I can’t help but think about the book-as-technology, durable vessel for information. The codex was an improvement over the scroll in terms of durability and ease of use. You could pack more feet of writing into a smaller space using a codex. It was easier to mark your place. And the flat codex was easier to wrap in a protective envelope and carry away with you. This technology developed in a time of economic instability, widespread migration, and increased interest in the written word. It didn’t suddenly arise fully formed in the shape we recognize today. People experimented a bit first.
From these late antique precedents, medieval books further refined the technology of the codex. In my opinion, the book-as-container really peaked in the Middle Ages because these are the most durable books around. Animal skin inscribed with acidic ink is still readable even if it falls in a lake. They’re much more fire resistant than a paper book, because it takes ages for dense, leather bound, parchment books to actually catch on fire. Why don’t we make them this way anymore? Well, for one thing, it’s expensive, and although “information has value,” words are cheap [1].
I’m fascinated, in contrast, by the ephemerality of digital media. How do we get patrons to remember that our e-resources exist? Out of sight, out of mind. Despite their invisibility, files still take up space. The information is physically inscribed somewhere (on an AWS server, probably). On the internet, the world of information appears nonexistent until you think to look for it. If you stop paying attention for a little while, it might really disappear–wiped from the servers that housed it as quickly as it was created. Better hope the Wayback Machine archived an image of the particular point in the lifecycle of the site that you’re interested in. Meanwhile, a book, especially an over-engineered medieval book, endures.
I didn’t know the term “artist book” before I came to work at Ringling College of Art + Design. My own book creations were made for the sake of understanding the book-as-technology. What happens if I use this thread instead of that thread? Can I recycle this type of leather into a cover? What does it feel like to sew through parchment? I think of myself more as a craftsperson than an artist, but this work prepared me to look critically at artist books. This is my favorite artist book from those I’ve cataloged so far:
https://ringling.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01RINGLING_INST/16oris8/alma993789250206101
At first, I found the book challenging. I felt that it stretched the meaning of “book” almost to the breaking point. But then I opened one of the components and it reminded me of late-antique codices enclosed in leather envelopes.
I peered through the center of the closed component and understood the term “tunnel book.” I saw something that wasn’t language stored inside the book-as-container, something more like a feeling or a journey. The “artist book” light bulb came on.
Figuring out how the pieces of this artist book fit together and open up reminded me of puzzling out how an ancient binding works: How many layers are there? Can I see the joins and figure out how they’re attached? I return to the same kinds of questions that I ask myself when I repair a book from the general collection: How is this book put together? Can it stand up to being read a few more times? The artist book feels as delicate and precious as an archaeological artifact.
I often ask myself how the cataloging record can capture these experiments in book-as-technology, these containers of more than language. There are terms for different types of bindings and for different shapes of books. They are helpful if you already know what you’re looking for. I copy the artist's statement into the record in the hope that it will capture more of the feeling, but the record is not the original. Any digital representation is ephemeral, unsatisfactory, while the mass and structure of the book-as-container leaves a weighty impression.
There’s no closure to the process of thoughtful description. You can continue seeing, comparing to precedents, researching terms, imagining new formats for information, essentially forever. Manuscript description follows certain codified patterns, much like describing mass-manufactured modern books. Size, shape, materials, number of quires, paleographical analysis. Still, each pre-modern codex is a unique product of craftsmanship and artistic know-how, identifiable to an expert by those niggling little discrepancies of form and finish that set it apart from each other example of the same art. Artist books resist all standardized description which is what makes them fun to describe. They continuously innovate on the concept of book-as-container in ways that our cutting-edge digital technologies can never quite capture.
[1] Association of College and Research Libraries, “Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education,” American Library Association, January 11, 2016, https://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework
Dan’o Reid has an MA in History, an MA in Medieval Studies, and an MS in Information. They work at Ringling College of Art + Design, where they experience the singular joys of working with both aging materials and innovative technologies. In their spare time, they make blank journals and practice myriad textile arts. Contact them by email: dreid@ringling.edu or on LinkedIn.
