Oberlin College Libraries

Oberlin College Libraries For Library Hours - https://libraries.oberlin.edu/about/all-library-hours

The Oberlin College Libraries consists of the Mary Church Terrell Main Library, Terrell Special Collections, The Oberlin College Archives, The Clarence Ward Art Library, The Conservatory Library, and The Science Library

This past academic year, the Art Library asked our students to highlight our unique collection of artists' books. The st...
08/19/2026

This past academic year, the Art Library asked our students to highlight our unique collection of artists' books. The students were tasked with taking pictures of an artist's book of their choosing and then writing a short explanation of their feelings, experiences, or interest in the specific piece. To find out more about Oberlin College Libraries' Artists' Books Collection, visit dcollections.oberlin.edu/digital/collection/artistsbook

Artist's Book: Suspicious Love Poem
Creator: Caroline Garcia
Review by Sophia '26

"This double-sided, fish-centric book is one of my favorites. The first book recalls the gruesomeness of a fish head broiling in a grimy oven. The second book invokes the loneliness of a single, individually wrapped Swedish Fish. The reader is left to guess where and how these images combine to form a love poem, and herein lies the suspicion; what is love to do with Swedish Fish? What isn't love to do with Swedish Fish? I know how you feel." -Sophia, OC 2026

This past academic year, the Art Library asked our students to highlight our unique collection of artists' books. The st...
08/12/2026

This past academic year, the Art Library asked our students to highlight our unique collection of artists' books. The students were tasked with taking pictures of an artist's book of their choosing and then writing a short explanation of their feelings, experiences, or interest in the specific piece. To find out more about Oberlin College Libraries' Artists' Books Collection, visit dcollections.oberlin.edu/digital/collection/artistsbook

Artist's Book: Absolute Authority
Creator: Brian Dettmer
Review by Kyndall Abraham '29

"While Absolute Authority may look like a sculpture now it was once a book titled Health and Longevity. Now its paper is coated with acrylic varnish until it feels like wood carved and formed into the intricate designs of the photo. The artist book Absolute Authority book is an piece of art I could stare at for hour and still not notice everything about. Some of my favorite parts of the work are its references to the the original content of the book, with the artistic drawing of the inside of a humans face to the words remaining on the piece Absolute Authority is an incredibly interesting piece of art." - Kyndall Abraham, OC 2029

This past academic year, the Art Library asked our students to highlight our unique collection of artists' books. The st...
08/06/2026

This past academic year, the Art Library asked our students to highlight our unique collection of artists' books. The students were tasked with taking pictures of an artist's book of their choosing and then writing a short explanation of their feelings, experiences, or interest in the specific piece. To find out more about Oberlin College Libraries' Artists' Books Collection, visit dcollections.oberlin.edu/digital/collection/artistsbook

Artist's Book: Radical Food: Carrot Love - Carrot S*x: May 1-July 31, 1993
Creator: Coco Gordon
Review by Leo Slattery '29

"I picked RADICAL FOOD: carrot love-carrot s*x by Coco Gordon, published in 1993. Photos do not do this book justice: some pages are closer to traditional paper, some are more fibrous, some are collages where one can feel the added elements, some pages are translucent revealing a faded ghost of the page beneath. Throughout the book, small photos appear at the bottoms of the otherwise vacant pages. In these photos, one can almost make out a woman, or items of craft and food. Small pieces of collage are scattered throughout the book, made up of impossible-to-describe objects coming together to form an even more impossible form. There are also short poems written, some so small they fill a corner of the page, some so large the text runs off the page, some so layered with other poetry the reader is unable to ascertain a full sentence. A full essay is in the middle of the book, describing through a sort-of-ekphrasis-prose-poem other images similar to the ones that appear as images in the book. " Leo Slattery, OC 2029

This past academic year, the Art Library asked our students to highlight our unique collection of artists' books. The st...
07/29/2026

This past academic year, the Art Library asked our students to highlight our unique collection of artists' books. The students were tasked with taking pictures of an artist's book of their choosing and then writing a short explanation of their feelings, experiences, or interest in the specific piece. To find out more about Oberlin College Libraries' Artists' Books Collection, visit dcollections.oberlin.edu/digital/collection/artistsbook

Artist's Book: Rostros Migrantes: Coleción de Cein Microhistorias
Creator: Derli Romero
Review by Maeve '26

"This collection of 100 "microhistories" helps reground understandings of migration and forced displacement, often approached as macro-phenomena in political and economic discourse, in the infinite subjectivities of migrant experience. Mexican artist Derli Romero interviewed and photographed migrant people on various routes throughout Mexico and near the United States border, subsequently producing handmade paper from their clothing, shaping it into the silhouettes of the individuals, and printing excerpts of their testimonies on them. The containment of these words within the forms of silhouettes conveys the distinct corporeality of forced migration, an experience, as these stories describe, heavy with physical sensations of hunger, exhaustion, exposure, and violence. The individuality of the microhistories, a characteristic accentuated by the unique contours of each silhouette, implicates the viewer as an interlocutor, and I felt dedicated to spending time with every person Romero represents. "-Maeve OC 2026

The detour is canceled and the ramp is open. Come check out the newly installed front doors at the Terrell Main Library....
07/22/2026

The detour is canceled and the ramp is open. Come check out the newly installed front doors at the Terrell Main Library.

This past academic year, the Art Library asked our students to highlight our unique collection of artists' books. The st...
07/22/2026

This past academic year, the Art Library asked our students to highlight our unique collection of artists' books. The students were tasked with taking pictures of an artist's book of their choosing and then writing a short explanation of their feelings, experiences, or interest in the specific piece. To find out more about Oberlin College Libraries' Artists' Books Collection, visit dcollections.oberlin.edu/digital/collection/artistsbook

Artist's Book: Bird Songs, Heartbeats
Creator: Susan Weil
Review by Dosi '26

"I’m Dosi (4th year ARST + ARTH major) and I’m really drawn to the combination of photo and word in Susan Weil’s artist book “Bird Songs, Heartbeats”, published in 1980. The photos she includes are sometimes disturbing (my illustration in the photo covers one of a dead baby bird) but the themes of death and rebirth that Weil covers are poignant and make the unsettling imagery feel natural.

The writing is also very personal, covering Weil’s family travels and troubles through bird motifs, specifically phoenixes. My personal favorite touch is when the pages start becoming unreadable halfway through the book.

Overall, Weil’s book uses preservation methods to expose themes of decay and renewal. This book and many others allow me to approach creativity and learning in the same environment. That’s one of the (many) reasons I ❤︎ CWAL." - Dosi, OC 2026

Now through August, stop in Terrell Main Library's first floor to see a splendid array of works that range from fiber ar...
07/16/2026

Now through August, stop in Terrell Main Library's first floor to see a splendid array of works that range from fiber arts to photography to music—all created by library staff. This inaugural art show highlights and celebrates the multifarious artistic perspective and skills of our staff. The exhibition is open for viewing whenever the library is open.

This past academic year, the Art Library asked our students to highlight our unique collection of artists' books. The st...
07/15/2026

This past academic year, the Art Library asked our students to highlight our unique collection of artists' books. The students were tasked with taking pictures of an artist's book of their choosing and then writing a short explanation of their feelings, experiences, or interest in the specific piece. To find out more about Oberlin College Libraries' Artists' Books Collection, visit dcollections.oberlin.edu/digital/collection/artistsbook

Artist's Book: Dear Future Mustache
Creator: Tate van der Poel
Review by Tate van der Poel '26

"Freshman year, I took one of Nanette Yannuzzi's final book arts classes before she retired; Dear Future Mustache was my final project and one of two works from the class that I donated to the artists' book collection. It has end pages made from my (empty, rinsed out, dried) testosterone packets and covers made from a beard dye box. A variety of related ephemera are also stitched onto the pages: a large foldout made of the warnings included with my testosterone, the instructions for applying the dye, and Hello Kitty band-aids - not to mention the mesh panels with embroidered facial hair. It's an edition of two, and I was in the book arts studio for something like 50 straight hours to finish it during finals - and the second copy wasn't even bound by the time we had crit. It's one of my favorite things I've ever made, and I'm really glad it gets to live in an accessible collection (even if I do think the included biohazard warning is a little silly)." - Tate van der Poel, OC 2026

This past academic year, the Art Library asked our students to highlight our unique collection of artists' books. The st...
07/08/2026

This past academic year, the Art Library asked our students to highlight our unique collection of artists' books. The students were tasked with taking pictures of an artist's book of their choosing and then writing a short explanation of their feelings, experiences, or interest in the specific piece. To find out more about Oberlin College Libraries' Artists' Books Collection, visit dcollections.oberlin.edu/digital/collection/artistsbook

Artist's Book: Po stolovoi lozhke, or, By the Tablespoonful: A Beebook
Creator: Robin Breeding
Review by Vivian Bailey '26

"By the Tablespoonful, in the words of the artist" is a book about bees and flowers and ladies with nervous conditions." Each page, comprised of text clippings, photographs, thread, dried flowers and leaves, bees, postal stamps, lace, metallic ribbon, and flattened metal spoons and adornments, is sealed in fragrant beeswax, and the book itself kept inside a lace-covered fruit box. The included texts are "Russian medicinal flower recipes for hyper-tension, hysteria, and time of the month type things." This book, to me, is an intimate (and mildly humorous) acknowledgement of health and wellbeing concerns of the female body. The tactility of objects encased in wax accompanied by the aroma of dry flowers and honey offer to a viewer the soft yet potent reassurance and comfort that many people experience through use of traditional herbal medicines." -Vivian Bailey, OC 2026

This past academic year, the Art Library asked our students to highlight our unique collection of artists' books. The st...
07/02/2026

This past academic year, the Art Library asked our students to highlight our unique collection of artists' books. The students were tasked with taking pictures of an artist's book of their choosing and then writing a short explanation of their feelings, experiences, or interest in the specific piece. To find out more about Oberlin College Libraries' Artists' Books Collection, visit dcollections.oberlin.edu/digital/collection/artistsbook

Artist's Book: Tropos
Creator: Kevin Osborn
Review by Loretta Wilson '26

"The artist's book Tropos by Kevin Osborn, first captured my attention with its fun, unusual binding and cover material, as well as its symmetry. Tropos is a series of prints that are folded and bound together with a dark wooden rod and encased in a red leather-type cover, cut to resemble a rhombus shape. Within the book, the prints depict various settings and silhouettes with bright blue gem eyes that poke out of holes throughout the book and various words. Tropos reminded me of a puzzle and I found myself wanting to understand what the words on the pages meant and how the silhouettes were interacting with each other." -Loretta Wilson, OC 2026

Address

148 W College Street
Oberlin, OH
44074

Website

,

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Oberlin College Libraries posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The School

Send a message to Oberlin College Libraries:

Shortcuts

Share