A small press is a printer that operates on a much smaller scale than commercial printers, and often uses different techniques. Among the world of small presses are many fine presses, run by those who create artistic books by hand. These are often very small scale businesses, with only one or a few people running the entire operation. Their output is small, and their products are often expensive due to the artistry and rarity.
The Claremont Colleges Library Special Collections has numerous books printed by small presses right here in California, but there is currently no way to search for this specific collection. Therefore, I have been tasked with identifying small presses in California throughout history, then running reports to find the books we own from those presses.
This research brought me down a rabbit hole, as every time I ran a report for one small press, I found numerous others, as they often collaborated on projects. One would design the book, one might volunteer the illustrations, and another would print it. Many of the owners of these small presses were multiskilled, and would contribute to different parts of each project. This made it a bit difficult to search for the printer of each book, which is the specific information I was looking for. I wanted to find out who had printed each book, and confirm that it was printed somewhere in California. However, some books are printed in one place and published in another, making that information difficult to find or confirm. The reports are not straightforward, as sometimes the printer is the publisher, which is listed in its own field. However, sometimes it is listed in the author field with a relator assigning the role of printer, which does not show up in the report. This means the printer is not readily identifiable just from reading the report, and the information must be found from the catalog directly. The notes are sometimes the only place the printer is listed, and those also cannot be pulled from the reports. Years of varying cataloging standards has made it difficult to easily identify the printer of any given book, due to the information being found in a variety of places. Fortunately, I have managed to identify a large amount of books that were verifiably printed by small presses in California, along with the names of the printers by checking each individual catalog record.
I have most likely missed some of the small press books we have in our collections that were printed in California, but I am confident that I have found a large amount. As a result, we can now add LBDs so that small press books printed in California will be searchable. Casey Ann Mitchell, Head of Cataloging, is updating the records with this newfound information. I am assisting by adding the relator terms for the printers so that they are easily identifiable by looking at the catalog. This project could possibly be continued for much longer in order to make sure that no stone is left unturned, and every record is modified accordingly. It would also be important for new acquisitions to be correctly labeled as well.
This project has left me with a newfound appreciation for printers, especially since they are not always properly credited for their work. Hopefully the future will bring more recognition for their efforts.
Until next time,
Clara Newkirk