About the Project

In partnership with New York City’s Center for Book Arts (CBA), the Fall 2024 Advanced Projects in Digital Humanities course at Pratt Institute’s School of Information is developing a constellation of data-driven projects that explore the CBA’s collection and the field of artists’ books. Our goal is to spotlight the CBA to cultivate interest in its collections and in books as art. Given the CBA’s role as a museum, archive, and working studio, this project aims to connect with people across its community. Books as Art, Art as Data embraces digital humanities methodologies to further the CBA’s mission of democratizing the powerful medium of the book.

Books as Art, Art as Data will be housed in a website that will serve as a portal to all of the elements of our project. We are creating a timeline of the CBA’s exhibition history; an exploration of the relationships between the collection items; a narrative exploring the institution’s history in NYC as it has moved; and a network exploring book arts methods and terms. In addition, the project will provide resources for students and scholars looking to do further research, including a map of other artists’ book collections, the underlying data from the project, and documentation of our process.