Artists' Books and Supporting Resources: About Our Collection

The Sloane Art Library’s collection of artists’ books is a teaching collection, meaning that we collect as broadly as possible so that students and other patrons can see the full range of possibilities in the artists’ book form.  The collection is used by faculty and students across a number of disciplines and departments, as well as an active local book arts community. 

Special areas of strength in our collection are:

• work from major artists’ book presses such as Nexus Press, Visual Studies Workshop, and Women’s Studio Workshop, among others
• Latin American artists’ books, especially from Argentina, Cuba, and Mexico
• books featuring fine examples of different printmaking methods
• work by North Carolina artists

Access and Outreach

Most of the artists’ books are kept behind the circulation desk, but a small number are in the stacks for regular browsing.  Most can be found with call numbers beginning with N7433.4.

We work in a number of ways to increase awareness of the collection and to promote its use:

• public events, including an informal monthly drop-in event during the academic year called Artists' Books Book Club
• exhibits of artists’ books both in the small display case in the library as well as in larger exhibit spaces on campus
• enhanced records for artists’ books in the library’s online catalog, to facilitate searching by special features and methods
• adding photos of our artists’ books and zines to the ARTstor image database, so that images are more widely available for research and classroom use