Research methods

The primary sources used in this research were small publisher fair exhibitor lists. I referred to event flyers, pamphlets and promotional materials collected by Jerry Jenkins and other curators during previous visits. I researched other fairs online and accessed their exhibitor lists from their websites, artists’ blogs, and wider internet searches. The details of some fairs—particularly one-off events held in previous decades—were more challenging to find than others, and so some information was ascertained through artists’ CVs and online profiles.

Fig. 1.

Exhibitor lists for small publisher fairs collected by British Library curatorial staff.

For the purposes of this project, I defined the scope of relevant materials as artists’ books and materials produced by small presses and fine publishers in the UK and Ireland whose work may be suitable for acquisition, producing work in editions rather than unique artworks. The websites, blogs, and social media profiles of artists, publishers, galleries, and libraries proved useful in establishing location and determining whether a particular artist or press fell within scope. If in scope, I cross-referenced their work in the British Library’s catalogue to determine whether their work had been previously acquired. If necessary, I called up materials to the reading room to check their colophons for publication details. This was labour-intensive, but attention to detail was necessary to make sure that the data collected was accurate.

Small Publishers Fair, London

Once I had established my understanding of the British Library’s holdings, I visited two book fairs to collect data in person and to meet artists and publishers. The first book fair I visited was the Small Publishers Fair 2022, held annually in Bloomsbury, just a short walk from the British Library’s St. Pancras location.

Fig. 2.

Small Publishers Fair 2022 at Conway Hall, London.

As this was the first Small Publishers Fair to take place in person following the impact of Covid-19, one major research question was whether or not online provision had allowed for wider regional representation. We might have expected to see a big shift in the locations of exhibitors when a fair was held online, however, the story is more complicated. For example, as expected, more Scottish presses had participated online in 2021 than in person in 2022. Nevertheless, all but one of these presses had already exhibited regularly at previous pre-Covid fairs. Only one Scottish press, Stichill Marigold, had exhibited online without having travelled to Conway Hall previously. The same was true of the increase in exhibitors based in Wales and the Republic of Ireland. Rather than online provision improving accessibility for new exhibitors, this points toward the close-knit nature of this publishing community where exhibitors return year after year to the same fair.

Given the nature of artists’ books and fine press publications, this is perhaps unsurprising. The items produced by these artists and presses are, by their very nature, tactile and material. These artists and craftspeople use traditional techniques and equipment, with some publishers using printing presses that are more than a century old. In this industry, online provision does not necessarily equate to accessibility due to the difficulty in accurately representing work of this kind on a screen. As Johanna Drucker has argued, in contrast with other visual art forms, “books are created for one-on-one interactions”.^{Footnote 2} By attending these fairs and making work available in person, artists and publishers can foster the “zones of privacy” experienced by readers in their encounters with the book format.^{Footnote 3} These one-on-one interactions do not only take place between readers and books, but also between curators and publishers. Small publisher fairs are sites of discovery, in which curators encounter new works (and new artists). If these fairs are a major means by which British Library curators acquire works, how do their exhibitor lists reflect the regional diversity of Ireland and the UK? In the graphs included here, the red bars denote artists and publishers based in London. A comparison between the Small Publishers Fair and the British Library’s holdings shows a great deal of symmetry, specifically in terms of London’s proportional representation in the collections. A considerable amount of effort has been made to ensure that this data is as accurate as possible, but the nature of the collections meant that some records would be excluded whether due to their cataloguing and shelving status or to the time limitations of this project.

Fig. 3.

Pie charts showing regional representation at Small Publishers Fair 2022 versus British Library artists’ books and fine press holdings (Red = London).

The strength of the British Library’s relationship with this publishing community is underlined by a comparison to another major fair—the Bristol Artists’ Books Event (BABE). 70% of the relevant exhibitors at the Small Publishers Fair are represented in the British Library’s collection. In contrast, 29% of exhibitors at BABE 2022 are represented in the collection. This brief comparison gives a suggestion of the geographic clustering of these publishing communities and underlines the importance of attending fairs outside London. The close-knit nature of these communities can, therefore, be a double-edged sword. While there is a great sense of collaboration, they could also exclude artists and publishers from further afield who might face challenges in having their work be accessible as a result.

Legal deposit and the Irish publishing landscape

Though not usually coming to the British Library through legal deposit, legal deposit legislation contributes to the cultural backdrop in which the acquisition of artists’ books and fine press publications takes place. Under this legislation, copies of printed matter published in the UK and Ireland should be supplied to the British Library. In addition, the other legal deposit libraries covered by this UK legislation can request copies from publishers. Trinity College Dublin also acts a legal deposit library within the UK system. Its status as a legal deposit library comes as a reminder of the colonial past, as this legislation predates Irish independence and the formation of the Republic. Though the Republic of Ireland has its own legal deposit legislation, the 1710 Statute of Anne legal deposit legislation was extended by the Copyright Act (1801) following the Act of Union with Ireland.^{Footnote 4}

Small press publications fall under legal deposit when they are made publicly available, even if these works do not have ISBNs. Artists’ books, usually produced in very limited editions, tend not to be subject to legal deposit legislation. Publishers operating in Ireland are subject to two legal deposit schemes, supplying copies to a minimum of nine libraries (including the British Library) and a maximum of thirteen libraries across Ireland and the UK upon request.^{Footnote 5} This contrasts with UK-based publishers who must only automatically supply the British Library one copy and the other five libraries upon request.^{Footnote 6} There is, therefore, a particular imbalance of cost for small publishers based in Ireland, and an imbalance of access for readers—Northern Ireland does not have its own legal deposit library, falling between the two schemes. These costs, combined with discomfort arising from the colonial origins of legal deposit, can cause some small publishers based in Ireland (especially in the North) to avoid supplying copies of new publications to the British Library.^{Footnote 7} Therefore, small publisher fairs taking place on the island of Ireland provide an additional opportunity to acquire publications that fall through the cracks.

Dublin Art Book Fair

Every publisher fair has a different character and approach, which was shaped by the work included, target audience, hosting location, and cultural context. The Dublin Art Book Fair (DABF) was a fruitful point of contrast with the Small Publishers Fair at Conway Hall. DABF 2022, held in Temple Bar Gallery, included evening and weekend events such as artist talks, film screenings, and guided walking tours of local bookshops. One major difference was that no artists or press representatives were present in the exhibition space in Dublin. The fair comprised long tables in the gallery space, with books laid out by curators. Some presses had table sections allocated to them, with explanatory notes and location details provided. In general, however, artists’ books were displayed for sale without artist details provided. For these reasons, the Dublin fair was more akin to a visual arts space while the Small Publishers Fair was more closely aligned with a traditional book fair format.

Fig. 4.

Dublin Art Book Fair 2022.

In stark contrast with the Small Publishers Fair, only 16% of exhibitors at DABF 2022 were represented in the British Library’s collections. However, this cannot simply be explained by geographic distance. DABF had a wider range of works compared to the Small Publishers Fair, including photobooks and exhibition publications alongside artists’ books and small press publications. This was an example of the variety among definitions of artists’ books as a term. For DABF this included materials not considered to fall within the original scope of this placement (such as exhibition catalogues comprising photographs of visual art works with an accompanying introduction). The definition of artists’ books at DABF seemed closer to books produced by artists than books as art objects. Although fewer artists exhibiting at Dublin were represented in the British Library collection, not all of their works would have necessarily fallen within scope for acquisition. However, there were photobooks and exhibition publications included in which the codex format was used creatively, making them more akin to artists’ books than simply printed reproductions of artistic works.

Between the visual arts and publishing worlds

The comparison between the Small Publishers Fair and DABF underlines the status of the artist’s book as an artefact between spheres, belonging to both the publishing and visual arts worlds. One example was Galalith by Lauren Gault, produced following an installation of the same name held at Temple Bar Gallery earlier in the year.^{Footnote 8} The publication was launched at an event during DABF, during which the artist was present to offer insights into her work. The launch discussion of Galalith highlighted that the relationship between an exhibition and its accompanying publication can be more complex than it may appear. In Gault’s own words at the book launch event, the book allowed her artwork to ‘be another body’ and act as ‘a fluid artefact.’ A work like Galalith operates on the boundary between the exhibition catalogue and the artist’s book through which, according to Drucker, ‘a book can also be a self-conscious record of its own production.’^{Footnote 9} The challenge for the British Library will be determining where this boundary lies when it comes to their acquisition practices.

Fig. 5.

Galalith by Lauren Gault, photograph reproduced with permission of the artist.

Similar boundaries, or borders, are disrupted when navigating geographical distances and cultural differences. The visual arts culture surrounding artist’s book fairs in the Republic is more skewed towards interdisciplinarity. Many exhibitors at DABF worked across a variety of disciplines, like Gault, for whom a bookwork or pamphlet was one project rather than a continuing long-term practice. The National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL) includes zines and photobooks within their artists’ books collection.^{Footnote 10} Although many works included in NIVAL’s collection, and exhibited at DABF, do not fall within the British Library’s working definition of artists’ books (as fluid as that definition can be), it is important to recognize that these terms will be understood variously in the context of other cultures. Rather than dismissing works as out of scope due to their presentation as an exhibition catalogue or photobook, I considered works exhibited in Dublin on an individual basis.

Working with artists and publishers with an Irish identity (whether based in the North or in the Republic) requires sensitivity and understanding of the complex nature of nationhood and citizenship in contemporary Ireland, across the Irish, British, Northern Irish and other self-described communities on the island. Recent census data indicates that 31.9% of residents in Northern Ireland self-describe as ‘British only,’ while 29.1% self-describe as ‘Irish only,’ and 19.8% as ‘Northern Irish’ only.^{Footnote 11} Some artists included in the collection are based across the island of Ireland, residing both in the North and the Republic. In these cases, a judgement was made based on where the majority of recent work has been produced. This is a useful indication of the challenges faced by cultural institutions when working with materials from across the UK and Ireland: the geopolitical realities of borders not so strongly demarcated in artistic practice and lived experience. Therefore, it is essential that collecting libraries like the British Library take care to consider perceptions of their status as a British institution and to accommodate differing views on what it means for a work to be held in its collections.