Texas A&M Book History Workshop (4-9 June 2023)

This five-day workshop, limited to 20 students, provides an intensive, hands-on introduction to the history of books and printing. The workshop is intended for librarians, archivists, students, teachers, collectors, and private individuals who have an interest in the first three and a half centuries of the printed book.

Daily lab sessions concentrate on printing in the hand press era and its allied technologies, including typecasting, papermaking, bookbinding, illustration, and ink-making. Among the activities included in these sessions are casting type in a hand mould, setting type and preparing it for the press, printing on a period-accurate common press, papermaking, creating marbled and paste papers, and experimenting with a number of book illustration techniques.

Throughout the week, seminar sessions provide a thematic survey of book and printing history, with the collections of Cushing Memorial Library providing examples of some of the most significant artifacts and books in the history of recorded…