Book History Workshop

Information and Photos

Prologue

The Book History Workshop at Texas A&M University takes place annually in May. The Workshop provides students with hands-on exposure to printing in the hand press period, along with all its allied activities: typecasting, papermaking, bookbinding, illustration, and ink-making.

The Workshop begins with a reception on Sunday evening and continues through mid-day Friday.

Each day begins in the classroom, where participants learn not only about the historical evolution of book-making, hand press printing and it's related industries but are also able to examine books from the Cushing collections which illustrate these concepts. These items include a Sumerian clay tablet, medieval manuscript books, early printed books as well as facsimiles of papyrus scrolls, wax tablets, Coptic texts, and the world's oldest known diptych.

After the classroom session, students head to the "print shop" where they strike and justify a matrix, cast type in a replica of the world’s oldest surviving type mould, dress and set type, make paper, prepare it for printing, make woodcuts and wood engravings, and print a duodecimo pamphlet imposed for work and turn on a reproduction of an English common press built by Workshop staff member, Stephen Pratt.

At the end of the week, the Workshop concludes with a Wayzgoose, the annual party traditionally thrown by the master printer for his journeymen and apprentices.

The workshop also hosts evening lectures from scholars working in the wide field of book history. Past lecturers have included Cemal Pulak of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M; Margaret Ezell of the English Department at Texas A&M; Maura Ives of the same; Henry Petroski of Duke University; Paul Needham of Princeton; Ron Tyler of the University of Texas at Austin; and Al Brilliant of Unicorn Press.

Workshop participants have represented the University of Wisconsin, Louisiana State University, Florida State University, Pratt Institute, Yale University, St. Johns University, Catholic University, the Houston Community College System, Rice University, Texas A&M University, the University of Southern Mississippi, Miami University, and the University of Houston. The participants came from a variety of backgrounds, including professors of Library Science, Education, and Biology; graduate students in English, Library Science, and Computer Science; practicing archivists and librarians; and small press publishers. Some participants may also take the course for credit through a partnership between the Workshop and the School of Library and Information Science at the University of North Texas.

Funding for this program is provided by the Friends of the Sterling C. Evans Libraries, the Loran L. Laughlin Printing History Endowment, the John H. Hinton Endowment, the Melbern G. Glasscock Center, and the Richard and Shirley Bryan Library Endowment.

The 5th annual Book History at A&M Workshop is tentatively scheduled for late May 2006. For registration and other information on the 2006 Workshop e-mail Chris Morrow at c-morrow@tamu.edu or call 979-845-1951.