Joyce at the Iowa Book Works has just completed 100 Ethiopian book binding kits. This must be some kid of record! 1200 perfectly drilled and cut lacing paths!
HOW TO ORDER IOWA BOOK WORKS Products: To order send an email to iowa.book.works@mchsi.com. Please include your mailing address when ordering.
***Iowa Book Works preserves Peruvian libraries
We are off again (May 2010) to assist the reinstallation of the exhibits at the Recoleta. For more on this high adventure project go to the blog site.
***production project
Iowa Book Works is binding over 500 copies of a
facsimile letterpress edition of early letters of Samuel Clemens. This is a project for Keokuk Public Library.
***story of the book
Iowa Book Works supplies book craft kits that enliven and accentuate learning. The popular Ethiopian book kit with its Mahdar amulet case provides cultural lessons in the advent of the codex. Amana and Nauvoo pioneer book kits engage hands and mind as students learn of life in 19th century United States. The modern sewn boards book kit provides an adventure in future prospects for the codex. The comprehensive model set of ten historical bookbinding types supports advanced book studies as it provides tactile and structural understanding of the codex mechanism. These and other Iowa Book Works products and services support education in the history of the book.
Instructors in book arts and history of the book, in context of home schooling or university programs, will appreciate the elegance and efficiency of Iowa Book Works support. Kits include precision cut components and specialized construction supplies. Clear and complete illustrated instructions supervise class room activities while opening opportunities for discussion and wider teaching.
The teaching set of historical bookbindings includes a complete tutorial of the structure and reading actions of books across an immense sweep of time and cultures. The classroom experience is invigorating and quickly prompts advanced student projects.
Iowa Book Works expert staff of Joyce Miller and Gary Frost provide a further resource for book arts and book studies instructors. We will gladly support special projects and learning agendas. We will work with you to create your own book studies program from beginning reading to graduate assignments.
HOW TO ORDER IOWA BOOK WORKS Products To order send an email to iowa.book.works@mchsi.com. Please include your mailing address when ordering.
***Stories about Books
The Iowa Book Works Historical Bookbindings set of ten prototypes for the book format provides an excellent classroom resource for motivating book studies. The Coptic and Ethiopian books prompt study of archeology or ethnography…excavating or visiting different cultures. This famous pair also introduces the books of Africa which provided models for all the Western book cultures.
Another pair from the early 19th century of the first production cloth covers, prompts discussion of handmade and machine made books and the wider context of material culture collections. The vellum binding and wooden board binding pair contrasts the lecturn book with the pocket book and brings up discussion of connectivity and libraries.
Writing and printing discussion is prompted by the long stitch account book and the letterpress paper case binding. Finally the 17th century leather covered binding and the modern edition sewn board binding introduce the continuing technologies and uses of books.
Best of all the students will manipulate these various book structures and realize the innovations and functionalities of the book and the different skills and methods needed to make them.
This comprehensive teaching resource features reveals of the interior structures of each bookbinding, a detailed tutorial essay of each book and the directions for further study and the whole set is custom boxed for library storage and portability.
***Literacy Landing
STORIES: LITERACY & LANGUAGE CENTER – This project will be built on a 15 acre Coraville Iowa River Landing site near the Marriot Hotel and Convention Center. IOWA BOOK WORKS has been invited to contribute to the planning process. The project will feature three domains of learning.
***Reading
This domain will feature the miraculous skills of reading and language multiplexing. Reading of all kinds will be presented including reading maps, reading music, reading the sky and the road, reading the weather, reading animal tracks, reading body language and reading your thoughts. And book reading too!
***Book
This domain will feature adventures across time and cultures with a focus on the arts and history of books. A unique Museum of Reading Devices will anchor an exposition of the electronic book and the future of the print book. This exposition will cross the formats of scroll, codex and computer screen and feature the exciting prospects of digital books. It will feature presentation and facilities in hand papermaking, calligraphy, hand book binding, letterpress printing and a living museum of the book in the pioneer mid-west. The digital technologies and delivery systems of the electronic book will be explored and explained.
Studio facilities of the University of Iowa Center for the Book will be located on the campus of the Literacy Landing development. Here students will pursue their projects in view of visitors. Demonstration programs interpreting historical book production and book craft skills will be provided by the UICB students.
***Content
This domain will adventure into the worlds of content with virtual theaters of fantasy, fiction and science. Popular youth reading content such as the worlds of Polar Express or Harry Potter will be explored with readers’ fan clubs and their communication venues. Reading environments integrating food courts and retail functions will provide a unique approach to eating and shopping.
***Ethiopian book production happens right here in Iowa.
Let us support your book studies course with this exemplar of the early codex. The students love to make these ancient iPods from their Iowa Book Works kits. Make the Mahdar amulet case too and wear your Ethiopian journal on adventures.
HOW TO ORDER IOWA BOOK WORKS Products To order send an email toiowa.book.works@mchsi.com. Please include your mailing address when ordering.
***Iowa Book Works popular workshops
Two recent workshops were filled with enthusiastic participants. At Syracuse University fourteen students enjoyed making an Ethiopian book with Mahdar as well as the Elegant Sewn Boards binding. At the Center for Book Arts in New York City ten students did Cartonnage and Free Leaf (an introduction to design traits of the papyrus book) the Jiffy Journal (a desktop binding) and the ever popular Elegant Sewn Boards binding.
Why not ask about these terrific Iowa Book Works workshops all designed to advance your own book studies and book arts programs?!
***Pioneer Book Kits are great home schooling projects!
The Nauvoo Trail Journal and Amana School Book kits commemorate Midwestern book production of the 19th century. These project kits, suitable for young adults as well as students of book studies, provide an exciting craft experience and a durable keepsake of the lessons of history.
The Nauvoo Trail Journal represents books carried by Mormon pioneers during their emigrations to new homelands in the West. The materials, hemp cord text sewing, leather and decorated paper covering accurately represent the book production at Nauvoo Illinois during a period in the 1840ís when this settlement was a center for Mormon publications.
These books went across the wide prairies.
The Amana School Book represents books made by German immigrants who established their industrious communal Colonies in eastern central Iowa. The materials, vellum strap text sewing, cloth and decorated paper construction accurately represents book production in the later 19th century in a historical setting in which printing and binding was accomplished independently in each small town across America.
The 4 Ωî x 7î
Trail Journal and School Book kits both provide 128 pages ready for recording a modern day adventure. The kits include Iowa Book Works instructions with clear narration and illustration of each assembly step. All kit components match historical qualities and high standards of precision. Prompts for continued study of historical book work are included as well.
Iowa Book Works craft kits provide students with a vivid experience and a new understanding of life prior to electronic communications and screen based reading. Students will take satisfaction from an exercise of their dexterity and manual skill and they will enjoy the timeless thrill of composing and recording their own stories and insights in a paper book.
Individual kits are $45 shipped anywhere in the United States. Discounts are provided beginning at 10 kits. Technical and Instructor class plan support is provided by Iowa Book Works.
