Customs of book making are a basic aspect of civilization and constitute tradition in the truest meaning of the word— forms transmitted through time that carry forward knowledge while constantly adapting to new circumstances, demands, and expectations. While there have been mutual influences between these forms throughout the history of book making, and exchanges of new materials (paper) and technologies (printing) have exerted their influence, all three major traditions remained recognizably true to their own characteristics.

These basic forms were also not static geographically: spreading in conjunction with other major civilizational vectors such as religion or war, they adapted to other languages, scripts, or ecological environments. Only in the late 19th century did the development of industrial ways of book making, responding to demands for ever faster and more numerous book runs, push the traditional forms into the secondary niches of art and crafts, and create a dominance of the machine-produced codex form everywhere.

Please join us again for the following upcoming exhibitions that explore related themes in more depth:

The Art of Publishing: A Selection of Japanese Illustrated Books from the Marquand Library Collection, 1660-1960, opening September 2026.

Networks of Knowledge: The Social Lives of Manuscripts in the Islamic World, opening September 2027.