Every book tells its story in its making. The material used for the text, the method of writing or printing, and its use and preservation as folded sheets or bound together in the codex format inform the book as object. Books reflect their makers, their readers, and their users. This exhibition will feature the covers or the bindings of books as a reflection of their production and consumption – or, in other words, the material book as witness to its manufacture, use, and survival. Highlights will include not only examples from the Fisher collections of the art of bookbinding, but also examples that reflect the presence of books in our lives for purposes of religious observance, reference, recording, and leisure. The books will broadly illustrate the processes of their construction and their afterlives in the hands of readers, collectors, and libraries.

This exhibition was compiled and edited from Greta Golick's research and teaching notes by Marie Korey and David Fernández.