On August 23, 2023, I presented the poster Curating Artists’ Books and Improving Their Access at University of Miami with Cristina Favretto at the SEFLIN Conference 2023. The project grew out of our work with the artists’ books collection in Special Collections at the University of Miami Libraries, which includes more than 2,000 works and is particularly rich in artists from Florida, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.
Artists’ books present unique cataloging challenges. Many are one-of-a-kind objects that experiment with form, materials, binding, and the traditional structure of a book. As a result, some of their most important characteristics can be difficult to capture adequately in a conventional bibliographic record.
Our poster explored these challenges and proposed several ways to improve the description and discovery of artists’ books. These included creating more comprehensive descriptions, using controlled vocabularies and genre/form terms consistently, strengthening collaboration between catalogers and curators, and incorporating high-resolution images to better represent each work's physical characteristics.
Another important part of the project was the creation of a Special Collections Artists’ Books Featured List. We selected 21 works from the collection and enhanced their records with multiple images, more detailed metadata, and structured categories that allowed users to explore the collection in new ways. Our goal was to provide another avenue for digital discovery while making these collections more accessible and encouraging their use.
The project also prompted us to consider future improvements, such as expanding the Featured List with additional titles, refining genre/form terms in the catalog, developing cataloging templates specifically for artists’ books, and exploring the potential of Linked Data for these collections.
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