Helen Cole

Librarian, Rare Books Collection
James Hardie Library, State Library of Queensland

To (g)love and to hold: Artists’ books in libraries

This paper will survey some of the issues of selection, acquisition, maintenance and access facing libraries that collect artists’ books, and show some particular works from the James Hardie Library of Australian Fine Arts that have proved a challenge in reconciling preservation and access. It will detail the advantages libraries have as presenters of artists’ books and show why libraries are ideal places to experience artists’ books as their makers intended.

Helen Cole grew up in Mackay and developed an interest in art here when her only contact with the outside art world was a subscription to Art and Australia. Study at the University of Queensland in Art History, History and Russian, and at QIT in Librarianship, was followed by work as Manuscript Librarian in the John Oxley Library. Since 1992 Helen has been Librarian with the James Hardie Library of Australian Fine Arts, a job that combines her dual love of art and book history. Helen’s other area of particular interest within the collection is botanical art and its history.

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