Artists’ books are a part of many Special Collections and Rare Books institutions’ holdings, and Iowa State University is included among these. I have found that artists’ books often have interesting and challenging moments in their caretaking. One of our newer acquisitions is a set of the Visionaire issues and they have definitely been an example of artists’ books that are both interesting and have their challenges!
Visionaire is a periodical of artists books that started publishing in 1991. While these started as fairly typical examples of artists’ books, there are many issues of Visionaire that push the boundary of what can be considered an artist’s book. Special Collections and University Archives received a donation of issues 1-62, including toys, an audio record, and a jean jacket as a “cover” for one of the books. They are not always as book-like as you might think! This has posed a challenge as we catalog the books and go to put them on our shelves because many of the issues won’t fit on our shelves; especially as not all of them are book shaped.
We are tackling this challenge in several ways. The first is that instead of our book shelving, we are storing the Visionaire materials in the part of our stacks that is for our archival boxes. These shelves are deeper, which means more of the issues will fit. We’ve also adjusted the height of the shelves to allow some of the larger materials to stand, and are using the shorter shelf for the materials that need to be laid flat. There are still more issues that will need to be added to our oversized shelves. SCUA is also working with Preservation’s conservator to figure out the best housing for each issue.
Our conservator has talked to other conservators at other cultural institutions that hold Visionaire as well to see how they have housed the issues. Some of what other places have done will work for us, while other things won’t. She is making housing for each issue depending on what they need. For some this means a four-flap to cover the issue, while others need their own box, foam inserts, or handling instructions. Some can be stored standing up, as I mentioned earlier, while others need to be laid flat and some have to be laid flat because they’re just too oversized to stand on a shelf.
A little over half of the Visionaire issues have been cataloged and had housing created for them so far. These are available for patrons to explore right now! The rest of Visionaire is being added to the library’s catalog and having housing created–and will be available to dive into soon.
The various issues of Visionaire can be found in the Iowa State University Library catalog under call number N6480 V57. For more information about the artists, see The Visionaire Contributors page.
Cardinal Tales 