Viewing Special Collections materials is by appointment only. Contact library@ccad.edu.

Bring your CCAD ID card. If your item has a barcode we will "check out" the item. If it doesn't have a barcode, we will hold your ID. For security purposes, we request that you sit at the table across for the circulation desk. One book may be viewed at a time unless special permission is given to view multiple books.

Book handling 101: Wash your hands (no moisturizer, please); no food or drinks allowed; stow belongings; pencil and notebook or laptops only; photos without flash are allowed, but not photocopies. 

The majority of our books are cataloged, but if you need an overview by subject, the inventory can be a valuable tool.

What is an Artists' Book?

"...[A] book done for its own sake and not for the information it contains. That is: it doesn't contain a lot of works, like a book of poems. It is a work. Its design and format reflects its content.... ...The experience of reading it, viewing it, framing it—that is what the artist stresses in making it. The illusion is that it is something new. Not so. Blake's most visual books are obvious early artists' books." (Dick Higgins, "A Preface." In Artists' Books: A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook. Edited by Joan Lyons. Rochester, N.Y.: Visual Studies Workshop Press, 1985. p. 11.)

Generally published in limited editions or as unique works of art, artists’ books can take many forms. For example, the CCAD Library’s collection includes accordion books, tunnel books, cards, photo books, as well as commercially-bound books. Although book printers have experimented with structure, typography, and design for centuries, the artists’ book is primarily a twentieth and twenty-first century art form.

For information on making artists' books, see our Book & Paper Arts LibGuide.

Categories in the genre include:

• Book-like objects/Sculptural books - Book forms that emphasize physical characteristics and are produced as unique objects or in very limited editions.  Likely evaluated as crafted objects. 

• Multiples - Artistic concepts in book format, produced in open or large editions, printed inexpensively (traditionally offset or xerography, more recently desktop printing), and distributed widely, even indiscriminately.  Those criteria also inform the term “democratic multiples.”  Eight- or 12-page black-and-white pamphlets characterize (but do not define) democratic multiples.

• Limited editions - Small and numbered editions, often the products of artist/writer collaborations.