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590 Utah State University Library has number #
590 Library has copy 26.
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Subject and Genre
Artist’s book, Private press, Small press, or Livre d’artiste?
Artists books are produced by artists and intended as visual art objects; they often play with the form or idea of a book.
Small press are put out by a small press and finely produced (handmade paper, etc.) with runs of less than 500 (but can also at same time be an Artist’s book)
Private press is a guy in a garage (but can also be an Artist’s book too)
Privately printed is something printed for an individual (old rare books, not usually a 20th century thing).
Livre d’artiste is an overlapping term for books containing collections of original works of art, usually printed directly from a source created by the artist themselves, rather than from a source that was created by a technician from the artist's design. Originated in France around the turn of the 20th century.
However: if an artist states that the item is an Artist’s Book, then catalog it as an Artist’s Book
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In the past we have used Rare Books Binding & Genre Thesaurus (in SCA) or the Art and Architecture Thesaurus, but there are also newer sources available, such as LCGFT Library of Congress Genre and Format Terms (available in Classification Plus, which useful) and Allison Jai’s Artists’ Book Thesaurus, which was created for ARLIS/North America (Art Libraries Society of North America): http://allisonjai.com/abt/vocab/index.php, but has no subfield 2 code as of 2021). On occasion, we have used our own Local genre terms, but usually for SCA only in SCA. 655 7 Artists’ books
Just a few examples:
655 7 Artists’ books. |2 lcgft
OR:
655 7 Artists' books. |2 rbgenr
With subdivisions:
655 7 Accordion fold format (Binding) |z United States |y 20th century. |2
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rbbin
655 7 Private press books (Publishing) |z United States |y 20th century. |2 rbpub
Odd formats/genres:
655 7 Livres d’artistes |2 rbgenr
655 7 Broadsides |y 20th century. |2 rbgenr
655 7 Book objects. |2 lcgft ←for Sculptural works that mimic the format or structure of the book.
710 Name of the Press/Publisher is useful to add, if you can discover it.
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