Join us July 17-20, 2025, in beautiful Salt Lake City, Utah!
Part of the J. Willard Marriott Library since 1995, the Book Arts Program champions wide-ranging explorations of the book in our interdisciplinary makers’ space for active learners from the campus, local, national, and international communities. In addition to our academic program, we offer non-credit courses and workshops to all ages. The Book Arts Studio is also home to the Red Butte Press where two handpresses and a large collection of foundry and rare metal type reside. These two presses, the 1846 Columbian Handpress and 1882 Albion Handpress, were donated by Dorothy and Lewis Allen in 1984 and became the foundation of what would later become the Book Arts Program & Red Butte Press.
The Book Arts Studio has one of the largest university collections of metal type and antique photo engravings in the country, along with a sizable wood type collection. Trained university students, staff, and faculty as well as members of the larger community have access to over 2,000 cases of metal type, over 20,000 photo engravings, and approximately 100 cases of wood type.
The studio is a working museum of thirteen floor model presses—ten mid-twentieth century flatbed proofing presses, and three clamshell platen presses, built in the late nineteenth century through early to mid-twentieth century. The studio also houses numerous table-top presses, three board shears, three guillotines, a Hollander beater, traditional and alternative printing darkroom, photopolymer platemaker, venthood, etching press, Risograph, large format Epson printer, dry mount press, backing press, plough, Kwikprint stamping machine, Hammond saw, drill press, nipping presses, and tools for gold tooling, leather binding, encaustics, papermaking, marbling, and multiple alternative printmaking techniques.