Hearty congratulations to the students in my Planning and Understanding Exhibits class for spotlighting bookbinding craft and practice in their successful exhibit All That Glitters: The Practice and Preservation of Hand Tooling. This exhibit introduced visitors to the practice of hand tooling, a form of decorating a book’s cover, as a physical signifier of the value of information. Through a collection of tools and books, the exhibit explored the process and labor of becoming a craftsperson and the importance of preserving both artifacts and practice.
The digital exhibit is live, and the physical exhibit culminated in a closing reception in collaboration with the Austin Book Arts Center. We were so pleased to host tooling and stamping demonstrations by Mark Evans of Adolphus Bindery and Mary Baughman. A few brave visitors even got to try their hand at this historical craft.
As featured in the Daily Texan, this exhibit was entirely planned and executed by iSchool students. From writing text and designing text panels; to crafting a narrative from physical materials; to digitizing exhibit materials, creating an exhibit website, promoting the exhibit online, and organizing the reception, students became their own exhibit committee and counted on each other to build a professional-level exhibit. What a heartening way to bring our book and information communities together. Three cheers to the class!
