It is now a tradition in the Fine Arts and Special Collections department of the Carnegie Mellon University Libraries to collect and exhibit book works created by artists as a component to teaching in the College of Fine Arts. The systematic collection of artists books was begun little more than a decade ago. Since then, the collections have grown to include several hundred books -- the largest collection of its kind in Pittsburgh.
Most of our artists books date from 1980 to the present, with some prime works from the 1960s and 70s. The works range from the beautiful to the political and from the exquisitely crafted original to the cheap copy. Some of our "books" would not be considered as such by strict definition, as the formats range from the traditional codex to the ViewMaster. Some of the most powerful artists books draw a delicate balance between the extremes of craft and concept -- the criteria we most often use when considering a work for our collections. The works in the current exhibition "Fictitious Texts" by David Laufer, for example, show how such a balance can be successfully accomplished.
Our artists books are acquired from many sources including the artists themselves and established distributors such as Printed Matter and the Women's Studio Workshop. We also collect selected works by the students and faculty at Carnegie Mellon. To find out more about our artists books collections, contact the Fine Arts and Special Collections Reference desk at 412-268-7272 or artsref@andrew.cmu.edu. The URL for the Carnegie Mellon library catalog on the Web is http://webcat.library.cmu.edu/.
