Libraries and books. The two go together like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. They have an obvious and historical connection. But add the word "artists’ " before "books", and the relationship changes immediately. This paper will look at why this word makes such a difference, but why in spite of it, libraries have much to offer the viewer of artists’ books.

Libraries have evolved, of necessity, into a fairly standardized environment. The process from choosing a book for a collection to issuing it to a client follows a clear and well trodden path. Generally books are selected from reviewing journals and other library oriented sources, purchases are made through large library suppliers and cataloguing is in accordance with an internationally accepted set of rules. All of these are essential to facilitate efficiencies of scale and the sharing of information.

However, in Australia artists’ books don’t easily fit this library mould. Generally, they don’t appear in lists of books in print, and are not well known in the wider library community, they are available only from small suppliers - often the artists themselves-they are often difficult to describe using standardized cataloguing rules, many of them don’t sit neatly on library shelves, they often cost more than commercially printed books, they don’t contain information - except about themselves (and isn’t that what is expected of libraries?)-but most of all they present problems of preservation, and this makes them unviable in a lending library context.

For all these reasons, relatively few Australian libraries actively collect artists' books. Mackay City Library, which began the collection that now forms part of the Artspace Mackay collection is to be commended as one of very few Australian regional libraries to collect these works, and so assist not only their clients in the local area, but also the cause of artists’ books.

Most of the Australian State Libraries collect artists’ books as part of their collections about their state, and some are acquired under the deposit provisions of the various Libraries Acts. However these are often illustrative rather than conceptual works. The libraries of some tertiary institutions also include artists’ books. Because of preservation issues most of these are treated as part of Rare Books Collections.

Occasionally an artist’s book will creep into library lists and be added to general library collections virtually by accident, but these are rare, and destined to a life of little use.

The James Hardie Library of Australian Fine Arts was donated to the State Library of Queensland in 1988 by James Hardie Industries as a bicentennial gift to the nation. At the time it included the germ of an artists’ book collection, mostly uneditioned works of the 1960s and 70s. This has since grown to a collection of some 500 Australian artists’ books. Another of State Library’s Special Collections, the History and Art of the Book Collection, holds around 300 artists’ books by non-Australian artists. We don’t get bogged down in definitions of artists’ books, and may include in these collections some works that others may not classify as artists’ books.

The collection is used extensively by teachers and lecturers at secondary and tertiary levels, as well as learning for leisure classes, to introduce their students to the art form, and to show them the possibilities for their own work. To cater for this use of the collection, we aim to include works using a diversity of materials and methods of printmaking, binding, papermaking and other bookmaking technologies, as well as, of course, any works of excellence.

This combination of heavy use and variable materials leads to a major problem of reconciling preservation of the works, which form part of Queensland’s heritage collection, and providing ready access to them.

While some artists are aware of archivally sound materials for the production of their books and wish to aid their longevity, for others it is a minor consideration. We need to allow for both approaches.

Strategies which are used to preserve the works, such as the use of gloves for holding and handling the books, and the use of protective interleaving to stop inks migrating from page to page, can put up barriers between the reader and the experience of the book as the artist intended. Books by their very nature are more than just visual. They are three dimensional objects with height, depth and length, the materials from which they are made have thickness, weight (or lack of it), texture and smell. We would like to facilitate an experience of the book for all the senses, as close as possible to what the artist intended. Not all the works in the collection assist us in this aim.

Some of the works that have challenged us and have challenged our conservators:

An untitled work by Luke Roberts, which comments on the inaccessibility of information in some books, is also a danger more to other works in the collection than itself, and causes confusion with some readers who want to remove all the clips, without realizing it is also nailed shut. Our conservators had great fun designing a box that would keep it under control.

The title of the exquisite little book Fingertrip by Maria Weaver refers to the tactile nature of the pages, an invitation, the artist says ‘for the reader not just to look, but also to run their fingertips across the pages and enjoy the simple patterns and textures they will find in the pages themselves’. However, the fragile nature of the work means that it would soon be destroyed by uncontrolled use. The pages, which are cut and folded pieces of card and fabrics, and the binding of three metal rings, will probably restrict its usefulness for group sessions. It is one where preservation needs will win over use of the book as the artist would have wished.

Some libraries have a ‘working collection’ which is used until signs of wear appear, and then ‘retired’ from regular use. We don’t do this, as it would restrict some of the works we and our readers find most interesting and beautiful. We have considered buying duplicates of some books- one for use, the other for preservation and exhibition. This strategy would not be possible with some works including this one, as it is unique.

Despite all of the issues that these books have, many of our books present no problems at all.

Libraries provide the closest and easiest access to the experience of a wide range of artists’ books. Books generally are not designed to be viewed as wall works. Holding the book and turning the pages are intrinsic parts of the reader’s experience.

Libraries allow the intimate interaction with the works that often draws artists to the form in the first place. Readers may have unshared access to a work. They have complete control over the speed and sequence of viewing. They can feel the weight of the book and its pages, and smell the papers and inks. Depending on the library’s policy, they may feel the texture of the materials as well.

While most galleries are able to show only one opening of a book at a time, the whole work is available in a library. One New York gallery tried to get around the problem by videotaping the turning of each page of each book exhibited. This doesn’t allow the close self paced viewing that libraries do. Computerized access such as that provided by the Museum of Modern Art and page turning software such as that used by the British Library, which make books available on the internet, may make books more widely accessible. However, while this access is better than none, it places all the previously mentioned barriers between the reader and the physical book, plus the extra one of the lack of scale. They don’t present an experience of a book, but merely access to pictures of a book – rather like going fishing and catching a picture of a fish.

There is usually no need to make an appointment to view works in a library. Where there is a discrete collection of artists’ books, there will be a librarian who wants to show it.

Libraries allow artists’ books and their public to come together in the close manner their makers intended. Artists’ books allow libraries to be not just documenters of art, but to take a much more active role as collectors, exhibitors and patrons of this intriguing art form. Like Fred and Ginger, libraries and artists’ books do dance together.