Artists Books and Art Books in the Digital Age

Libraries are leading conversations about the future of the book in the digital age. Last fall Hampshire Library hosted a symposium looking at artists books in the digital age. From production and creation to access and use, evolving technologies such as smart phones have made bookmaking a rapidly evolving art form.

A week ago the New York Public Library hosted a symposium on the Future of Art Book Publishing. The symposium asked: “In the face of Amazon.com, bookstore closures, self-publishing options, and shrinking library budgets, who is publishing art books and how are they reaching consumers and researchers alike? Commercial publishers and distributors, as well as independent and grassroots organizations, must confront the sea-change in how readers interact with the printed word. E-books and other digital formats are gaining in popularity for fiction readers and an increasing number of academic disciplines, yet very few art books meet the digital demand, even as more images of art are available online. Moreover, art books remain expensive to produce due to the necessity of high-quality, and often high-priced, image reproductions, among other vexing issues.”

These are provocative conversations for our library that was intended by Hampshire’s founders to “avoid the cultural pathology of print.”