Uncovering the book

"The exhibition, and the accompanying printed catalogue, celebrate book bindings, especially those done before the advent of mechanization when the binding of books was still done by hand. It traces the process of binding from the folding and sewing of printed sheets to its final form book as a book object. It considers the ways in which books reflect their makers, their readers, and their users. This exhibition features the covers or the bindings of books as a reflection of their production and consumption--or, in other words, the material book as witness to its manufacture, use, and survival. Examples come principally from the Fisher collections and they broadly illustrate the processes of their construction and their afterlives in the hands of readers, collectors, and libraries."--