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umdbooklab · 3 months

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Intro to UMD BookLab!

Hi! We're BookLab, the University of Maryland's English Department Makerspace. Plaintxt Press is our imprint (the entity that issues our prints [really we just like to put the logo on stuff]). BookLab was started by Professors Matthew Kirschenbaum and Kari Kraus in 2018, and Plaintxt Press was created in late 2023.

Here at BookLab, our primary medium is letterpress art. We also have materials for bookbinding, linocut, stamp making, collaging, and we're looking into screen printing. And we have a lot of random art supplies on the shelves. We also have a library of artists' books (super weird artistic books, like a book that is bound on every side) and books about books.

I made this tumblr bc I thought it would be funny.

Dramatis Personae / Cast List / People who work in BookLab

Matt (he/him): One out of two professors who started BookLab. He has a ton of awards or whatever. Nat says he has tenure for his tenure. He's a super weird guy but pretty cool. He's addicted to Twitter, so you can go see that @mkirschenbaum, it's so academic it breaks my brain.

Kari (she/her): The other professor who started Booklab. I don't know her that well but she seems cool.

A fun fact about Matt and Kari is that they are married. A second fun fact is that you will not hear this from either of them. It's normal to be cagey about being married in the workplace except that half of the English department here is married to the other half of the English department, so most people don't worry about it. Except these two.

Nat (she/her): PhD student with extreme goblinesque bisexual chaos energy. She is extremely accident-prone and yet competent at BookLab things. Also my bestie. She is studying digital humanities. The universe is currently in the process of entrusting her with a child (and we are extremely happy for her).

Diana (she/her): Goth PhD student getting her degree in English. Extremely literary in a dark academia kind of way. She acts kind of shy but is actually good at a lot of things and friendly. My other bestie.

Dylan (he/him): I don't know him super well but he's getting his PhD in something like queer literature. He's super gay and pretty cool.

Nat and Dylan have weird complicated beef that might be more Dylan's fault. I love to know the drama but I do not wish to actually get in the middle.

Rifka (they/them): Me. I like doing experimental letterpress and getting very messy. The fact that I run this Tumblr should tell you a lot about me.

RB (they/them): Occasional specter haunting Booklab (Matt is their mentor for this semester). Getting their PhD in comic book studies, porn studies, and digital humanities. They like BL. They are cool and transgender.

Aaron: Used to work in Booklab and they never took away his swipe access. He is very nice to hang out with. Knows all the drama and I am going to get him to tell me. He's really good at bookbinding.

Jasmine: Our intern (undergraduate). I haven't met her yet.

#booklab op #letterpress #book arts #makerspace

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rbolick · 4 years

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Bookmarking Book Art - “Very Like a Whale”, the Bodleian Bibliographical Press’s Exhibition

Bookmarking Book Art – “Very Like a Whale”, the Bodleian Bibliographical Press’s Exhibition

For the 200th anniversary of Herman Melville’s birth (1819), the Bodleian’s Bibliographical Press invited letterpress printers and artists to claim one of the eighty prefatory “Extracts” from Moby-Dick (1851) and create an artwork in response.

The Blackwell Hall exhibition case accommodates thirty of the eighty contributors‘ artworks, plus the rare three-volume version of the novel published…

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