Book Arts Baltimore (BAB) is an informal partnership among Baltimore-area institutions that share a passion for the history of the book and the book arts. Book Arts Baltimore aims to foster connections, communication, and dialogue among local universities, museums, libraries, and the wider public. The BAB website gathers and regularly updates information on regional courses on the book arts and the history of the book, champions discussions of ideas and resources related to the study of the book through a shared blog, and promotes a variety of events and regional programming, including speakers, symposia, and workshops.
BAB began in 2016 with a course on the Book Arts at Johns Hopkins that culminated in an exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art, “Off the Shelf: Modern and Contemporary Artists’ Books”, both made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to JHU’s Program in Museums and Society. The grant also supported the development of the first Book Arts Baltimore Website, which brought together programming at local universities, museums, libraries, and independent bookstores in Baltimore.
2020 marks the next chapter for Book Arts Baltimore. Thanks to the generous support of the Sweren Wogan Institute for the Study of the Book, inaugurated in Fall 2019, Goucher College is honored to carry on BAB’s mission through a newly redesigned website. The new BAB website features Blogs from Goucher students, as well as students, professionals, and faculty from our partner institutions in the Baltimore community. We welcome a wide variety of contributions, including notes on materials housed in local collections, insights on particular books, illustrators, and/or book artists, reviews of book-related physical and web-based exhibitions and/or digital resources, and reflections on issues and/or current events surrounding book history and the book arts.
If you wish to contribute to our blog, please visit the Submission tab and follow the guidelines. The BAB website will continue to update area courses semi-annually to reflect the book-centered courses, exhibitions, and programming of the participating institutions. Readers can find up-to-date news on different events in Baltimore in the Lectures, Events and Exhibitions tab. And finally, the Gallery tab will be used to showcase books and ephemera from Goucher and BAB partner institutions. To share photos and images, please follow the guidelines in the Submission tab.
Contact info: bookartsbaltimoregc@gmail.com
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BAB is able to execute its mission thanks to these participating institutions:
