About the project

This site documents the Urban Books Collection of artists’ books in the Olin Library Special Collections
at Washington University. The site is intended as a study resource for students in the Urban Books class, an interdisciplinary project combining Urban Theory (taught by Professor Zeuler Lima) and the production of Artists’ Books (taught by Jana Harper). The original collection of 91 books was purchased in 2004 at Printed Matter bookstore with support from a Sam Fox Interdisciplinary Teaching Grant from Washington University. The goal of assembling the collection was to provide original study material for students in the class. The class has been taught since 2004 and during that time student final projects have been added to the collection, which now numbers over 150 books.