Book Labs are academic, research, and teaching spaces where students and scholars explore the history, production, design, and materiality of books through hands-on activities.
Rather than studying books only as texts or historical objects, Book Labs encourage researchers to make, handle, print, bind, and experiment with physical media. Activities can include letterpress printing, papermaking, bookbinding, typography, screenprinting, typewriter work, zine creation, and other forms of book arts.
The growing Book Lab movement connects fields such as book history, bibliography, literary studies, information science, publishing, design, library studies, and the humanities. The approach emphasizes experiential learning—using practical work to understand questions about how books and other printed materials were produced and experienced.
Book Labs and Universities
Book Labs are not universities or independent universities themselves. Instead, they are generally spaces, programs, studios, or initiatives associated with universities, libraries, research institutions, or humanities organizations.
One prominent example is Skeuomorph Press & BookLab at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Directed by Ryan Cordell, the BookLab is described as an experiential studio for research and teaching in book and information arts and is housed in the Champaign-Urbana Community FabLab.
Other universities and institutions have also developed book-focused labs, makerspaces, bibliographical presses, and related initiatives.
The Purpose of Book Labs
The central purpose of a Book Lab is to connect theory with practice.
A student studying the history of printing, for example, can read about historical printing technologies. In a Book Lab, that student may also operate a printing press, set type, produce a printed page, and experience some of the physical limitations involved in the process.
This practical experience can raise questions that are difficult to understand through textual study alone.
For this reason, Book Labs are particularly useful for experiential research and teaching in book history. The 2025 Building Book Labs symposium at the University of Illinois brought scholars and students together specifically to discuss experiential research, teaching, and the development of sustainable Book Lab initiatives.
What Happens in a Book Lab?
The activities offered by a Book Lab depend on its equipment, academic focus, and institutional setting.
Common activities can include:
- Letterpress printing
- Bookbinding
- Papermaking
- Typography
- Screenprinting
- Typewriter experimentation
- Zine making
- Artist’s books
- Hand printing
- Illustration
- Archival and material-text research
- Experimental publishing
The 2025 Building Book Labs symposium, for example, included workshops on improvisational letterpress, screenprinting, illuminated initials, papermaking, typewriters, zines, and teaching with printing technologies.
These activities allow participants to approach historical and contemporary media from a practical perspective.
Book History Through Hands-On Learning
Traditional book-history research often involves examining manuscripts, printed books, archives, catalogs, and other historical sources.
Book Labs add another dimension by allowing researchers to recreate or experiment with aspects of historical production.
For example, researchers may investigate:
- How a particular printing technique works
- How paper affects the final printed object
- How type is arranged and reproduced
- How binding affects the physical use of a book
- How production constraints influence design
- How readers physically interact with printed materials
- How historical technologies shape the appearance of books
The objective is not necessarily to reproduce historical objects perfectly. Instead, the act of making can provide researchers with additional insight into the technologies, labor, materials, and decisions involved in book production.
Letterpress Printing
Letterpress printing is one of the activities strongly associated with Book Labs.
In letterpress, raised type or other relief printing surfaces are inked and pressed against paper. Working directly with the process allows students to understand aspects of typography and printing that can be difficult to appreciate from a digital reproduction.
Book Lab workshops can introduce students to setting type, arranging a page, preparing a printing surface, and producing physical impressions.
The University of Illinois’ 2025 Book Labs symposium included an Improvisational Letterpress workshop in which participants created collaborative broadsides.
Papermaking
Papermaking is another practical activity found in the Book Lab environment.
Paper is not simply a neutral surface on which words appear. Its texture, weight, strength, absorbency, and manufacturing process can affect how a printed or handwritten work looks and feels.
By making paper themselves, students can develop a more direct understanding of the material properties that influence historical documents and books.
The Building Book Labs symposium included a Papermaking on a Budget workshop led by Kit MacNeil from the University of Toronto.
Book Arts
Book Labs often overlap with the broader field of book arts.
Book arts encompasses creative approaches to books as physical objects. An artist’s book, for example, can combine writing, illustration, typography, paper, binding, and unusual physical structures.
The emphasis can shift from simply communicating written information to exploring the book itself as a medium.
Skeuomorph Press has also hosted hands-on artist’s book workshops. In February 2026, it announced a workshop in which participants explored basic artist’s-book formats and developed mock-ups for conceptual projects.
Book Labs and Digital Humanities
Book Labs may appear highly traditional because they involve physical printing, paper, and historical technologies. However, they can also connect closely with digital humanities and information science.
Contemporary researchers may use digital tools to document, analyze, reproduce, or reinterpret historical media.
This creates an interesting relationship between old and new technologies. A student might examine a digitized historical book and then use a physical printing process to investigate how its original production may have worked.
The University of Toronto’s 2026 Thinking Through Printing symposium, which followed the 2025 Building Book Labs event, explicitly brought together book history, research creation, and digital scholarship.
Book Labs as Teaching Spaces
Book Labs can provide students with learning opportunities that differ from conventional lectures and seminars.
Instead of only discussing a historical technology, students can interact directly with it.
For example, a class studying early print culture could examine historical books and then participate in a printing workshop. A course about publishing might explore the physical processes involved in producing a small edition. A literature course might use artist’s books or zines to examine how form influences interpretation.
This type of teaching is sometimes described as experiential learning because students develop knowledge through direct activity and reflection.
Research in Book Labs
Book Labs can also support scholarly research.
Hands-on experiments can help researchers investigate questions concerning the relationship between materials, technology, labor, design, and reading.
For example, a researcher studying historical typography might reproduce a particular printing technique to understand its practical limitations. A scholar examining book production might investigate how long a particular process takes or how materials behave under specific conditions.
These experiments do not replace archival or textual research. Instead, they can complement it.
The Building Book Labs Symposium
An important recent development in the field was the Building Book Labs: Hands-On Research & Teaching in Book History symposium held at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on May 20–21, 2025.
The event brought together scholars and students interested in experiential research and teaching in book history. Participants discussed how to establish, expand, and sustain Book Labs and related initiatives.
The program included workshops, roundtables, lightning talks, and discussions about Book Lab sustainability and funding.
The event was sponsored by organizations and units including the University of Illinois’ Rare Book and Manuscript Library, School of Information Sciences, Department of English, Skeuomorph Press & BookLab, and the Bibliographical Society of America.
A Growing Academic Network
The development of Book Labs has encouraged greater communication between institutions.
Following the 2025 symposium, the University of Illinois established a BookLab Network List intended for people who operate Book Labs and related initiatives around the world. The network is designed for sharing resources, opportunities, events, and other materials.
The organizers also planned additional symposia as part of a broader series exploring the future of Book Labs and critical making in book history.
The University of Toronto hosted the Thinking Through Printing symposium in June 2026, continuing conversations about book arts studios, experiential bibliography, research creation, and book history scholarship.
Book Labs and Critical Making
The Book Lab movement is also connected to the concept of critical making.
Critical making combines intellectual inquiry with physical production. Instead of separating thinking from making, researchers use the process of creating an object to investigate larger questions.
In the context of Book Labs, making a printed page, binding a book, producing paper, or recreating a historical technique can become part of the research process itself.
This approach can reveal practical details about technologies and materials that might otherwise remain invisible.
Book Labs and Libraries
Academic libraries can play an important role in Book Lab activities.
Rare book and manuscript libraries provide access to historical materials, while Book Labs provide spaces for experimentation and practical learning.
The combination can be particularly useful. Students might first examine historical materials in a special collections library and then use a Book Lab to explore the technologies or production techniques represented by those materials.
The 2025 Building Book Labs symposium itself used the University of Illinois’ Rare Book & Manuscript Library alongside Skeuomorph Press and the Champaign-Urbana Community FabLab for its workshops and sessions.
Book Labs and Students
Students from several academic backgrounds can potentially benefit from Book Lab activities.
Relevant areas can include:
- English
- History
- Library and information science
- Publishing
- Literature
- Design
- Art
- Media studies
- Digital humanities
- Cultural studies
The interdisciplinary nature of Book Labs is one reason the concept has attracted interest beyond traditional book-history programs.
Students can approach the physical book from different perspectives, whether they are interested in historical research, design, publishing, preservation, or material culture.
Why Book Labs Matter
Books are often treated primarily as containers of written information. Book Labs encourage researchers to consider another question: What happens when the physical form of the book becomes part of the research?
The size of a page, texture of paper, arrangement of type, method of binding, printing technique, and physical interaction with a book can all influence how the object is produced and experienced.
Book Labs make these elements available for direct investigation.
They therefore represent a broader shift toward experiential approaches in the study of books, media, and information.
Conclusion
Book Labs are academic and research-oriented spaces that use hands-on making to explore book history, printing, publishing, book arts, and material culture. They are not universities themselves; rather, they are usually studios, laboratories, makerspaces, presses, or academic initiatives connected with universities, libraries, and research communities.
The Skeuomorph Press & BookLab at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a prominent example. Its work combines experiential research and teaching in book and information arts with activities such as letterpress printing and other forms of hands-on making.
The wider Book Lab movement brings together scholars, students, librarians, artists, makers, and educators interested in understanding books not only by reading and analyzing them, but also by making and experimenting with them. Recent events such as the 2025 Building Book Labs symposium and the 2026 Thinking Through Printing symposium demonstrate the growing academic conversation around experiential bibliography and book arts education.
In this sense, Book Labs provide a bridge between scholarship and making, giving researchers practical ways to investigate how books and printed media have been created, used, and understood across history.