INTRODUCTION TO THE WEBSITE

During the pandemic lockdown, we have been working hard to upgrade this website. Since its inception in 2006, David Paton has been largely responsible for developing it into the primary website on South African artists' books, including the history and research on the subject, creating one of the most informative and fascinating sites on artists' books.

The website as it existed was not just a listing of the South African artists' books in the Centre but a comprehensive survey of all the South African artists' books which David could locate. Since then, research projects concerning the book-as-an-artwork, book arts exhibitions and their catalogues as well as related textual research, have been uploaded and we will continue to increase the database when we acquire or become aware of any more books or research in this area.

In 2019 we opened the Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts (the Centre) within the envelope of Wits Art Museum (WAM) at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg and subsequently decided that the website would be expanded to become the website for the Centre. This has entailed a rebranding to include all the items at the Centre, an increase from approximately five hundred South African artists' books to more than thirteen thousand books in total.

The upgrade incorporates the searchable database of the library catalogue for the Centre, thus including books in several categories other than artists' books, all of which may be searched individually or all aspects at once.

Should any viewers have any questions about our website or any specific item in the collection, please contact the Special Collections Librarian and we will attempt to help. If you find any incorrect information, we would appreciate being informed.

Please let us know what you think of our upgraded website and how you believe it could be improved.

Jack Ginsberg & David Paton. 2021

Please click here to read the full version of this Introduction including a guide to the database.