The Place for Artists' Books in Library Collections

Wemhoff, Ashley

An Article Review of "Acquiring Artists' Books at Art Book Fairs: Dynamic Collection Development Practices" by Joey Vincennie

Vincennie, J. (2022). Acquiring artists’ books at art book fairs: Dynamic collection development practices. Art Documentation, 45(2), 257–268. https://doi.org/10.1086/725520 

Summary:

This article discusses the practice of acquiring artists' books for library collections. During art fairs artists may sell books showcasing some of their collected works. The author of this article seeks to understand what kinds of libraries add these materials to their collections and contemplate why art fairs aren't used more for collection development. To begin they discuss briefly the history of art book fairs.

They describe art book fairs as, "venues for artists and publishers to sell their materials to the public. Materials one can generally find at an art book fair include artists’ books, zines, photobooks, artist multiples, rare books, magazines, posters, and ephemera."

While the author notes that art book fairs vary in size, they observe that these events provide a wonderful opportunity for librarians to connect with local artists, learn about artists' trades, and curate a collection of books to add to they library. 

After an examination of literature that discusses the collection of art books in libraries, the author goes on to present their findings from an online survey they collected from academic and special library respondents. From the results they found that 89.3% used art fairs as a place to build their art book collections, 57.1% used a virtual art book fair for collection development, and 75% had collections policies in place for the acquisition of art books specifically.

Evaluation 

The author of this article acknowledges that they would have liked to get responses from school and public librarians in their survey results, but they simply didn't get any feedback. There certainly could be some merit for these two library types to utilize art fairs as a collections development tool, but I have a feeling that it is mostly academic libraries and art libraries the utilize this resource. 

A brief discussion on how virtual art fairs are becoming more commons since the COVID-19 pandemic show that art fairs are becoming more accessible for rural librarians or for those who have limited budgets. Before reading this article I had not considered using art fairs to find materials for a library collection. I appreciated this author's nuanced discussion on how art is often subjective and librarians need to consider the community when acquiring art for a library collection.

If you are looking for an example of what art books visually look like, check out https://www.artbook.com/, one of the leading sellers for art books globally.