The University of Iowa Center for the Book (UICB) has received $5.35 million in contributions by raising $2.85 million in donations and securing a matching $2.5 million grant from the Windgate Charitable Foundation (WCF). The funds will go toward creating an undergraduate certificate and laboratory by combining lectures with hands-on learning. “They will get to […]
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The University of Iowa Center for the Book (UICB) has received $5.35 million in contributions by raising $2.85 million in donations and securing a matching $2.5 million grant from the Windgate Charitable Foundation (WCF).
The funds will go toward creating an undergraduate certificate and laboratory by combining lectures with hands-on learning.
“They will get to type the way Gutenberg did or make paper the way artisans did in Japan and in the medieval period,” said UICB Director Matthew Brown. “It’s really like time travel at one level.”
Money from the donations will also go toward giving graduate students a living wage, research work they can do to become better at their craft and recruiting students and faculty through travel experiences, said Mr. Brown. The additional support will allow the center the flexibility to hire more graduate students as teaching assistants.
UICB is also transforming several courses on book history around the planet, including western Europe, East Asia and South America, to make students more aware of a multicultural world. The courses are funded through National Endowment for the Humanities grants and help further diversity initiatives at the university.
Established in 1986, the center offers a curriculum in the book arts like letterpress printing, handmade paper, traditional and craft bookbinding, and calligraphy. Mr. Brown says the program teaches old crafts, but is forward-thinking to help students that go on to become book artists or designers, printers, conservators, librarians, publishers and scholars.
“It’s helping students understand how formats in the past inform or shape ways we might think about developing interfaces for screen reading or developing page design for contemporary books,” he said. “I can’t stress enough that [the UICB] is for the mind and not nostalgia. A lot of book production has analogies to engineering where you’re trying to work with constraints and figure out how you can lay out text and image in a constrained format. Business folks are constantly working within the constraints they face.”
UICB approached the WCF for a donation plan after an external review from outside scholars and academics said the program would likely need private funding to continue to flourish.
Currently, students can take coursework as an undergraduate or receive a graduate degree. There are three or four similar graduate programs around the country, Mr. Brown noted, but he thinks the center’s dedication to teaching the history of bookbinding and its connection with the U.S. history, English and creative writing departments sets the program apart.
“In our studio spaces, you’re being asked to focus sharply and slow down,” he explained. “That slowdown trains the mind to focus and is one of the key focuses of the book arts but it also has to do with figuring out how best to communicate and how to use the new digital platforms that we have in a way that might learn from these past formats.”
