Artist Interviews as a Tool in the Preservation of Artists’ Books

Abstract

The artist’s book is a collecting area that continues to grow in academic and research libraries. While guidelines exist for collecting and cataloging artists’ books, there is a shortage of practical models for the care of these often unique and challenging materials. This article presents three case studies in which interviews with the artists informed the preservation of artists’ books. In all three cases, the interviews deeply informed the subsequent preservation actions and sometimes upended the conservators’ initial assumptions about the appropriate course of treatment. Interactions with the artists helped conservators to understand the materiality and history of the works and devise preservation plans that respect the intentions of each work.