Key Links:
- Travel, accommodations, and local food recommendations (this list is growing)
- Schedule of symposium roundtables & workshops
- Workshop assignments
Event Description
On May 20-21, 2025, Skeuomorph Press will host “Building Book Labs: Hands-On Research & Teaching in Book History.” This event will gather scholars and students to theorize experiential research and teaching in book history and adjacent fields; share practical advice about founding, growing, and sustaining such endeavors; and to make together through hands-on symposium activities. We hope to better understand the book lab movement in our particular current moment; contextualize it in light of historical phenomena such as the Bibliographical Press movement; and expand the conversation to a wider range of institutional, disciplinary, or pedagogical contexts.
This event is co-sponsored the by Andrew W. Mellon Society of Scholars in Critical Bibliography, the University of Illinois’ Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign School of Information Sciences, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Department of English, the Bibliographical Society of America, and the Champaign-Urbana Community FabLab.
We were bowled over by responses to our call for statements of interest and look forward to welcoming a larger-than-expected gathering to UIUC. We are especially grateful to the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, who are providing not simply financial support, but also space for the symposium’s larger events.
Event Sponsors
The Andrew W. Mellon Society of Scholars in Critical Bibliography, the University of Illinois’ Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Bibliographical Society of America, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign School of Information Sciences, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Department of English, Skeuomorph Press & BookLab, the Champaign-Urbana Community FabLab
Map of Locations
All events are in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library (Room 346, on the north side of the Main Library) and the CU Community FabLab, which houses Skeuomorph Press. The walk between the buildings takes 5-10 minutes on a diagonal path across the South Quad. The map below should help.
