Altered Books

Readers often talk about a book changing their opinions, outlooks or lives. But what if we turn the table and change the book?

The process of taking a book and changing it into something else can be fascinating. You could take a book and turn it into a box or a clock or some other object – or you could make its pages tell a completely different story.

There are many ways to alter a book. You can treat it as a sketch book and fill its pages with art. Use it as a photo album or scrapbook. I have been working on one that collects quotations about books and libraries and another of mini collages.

There are some great classes on CreativeBug – just search “altered books” to find them. YouTube and Instagram are also full of altered book content – so I am guessing that there might be a few altered book enthusiasts amongst our library patrons!

I have been thinking about starting an Altered Book Club (or Workshop?) at the West Windsor branch. It would give you (and me!) a chance to meet other ‘book alterers’ (not sure that’s a word) – share ideas, trade materials, and generally have fun hanging out and working on our projects.

If you are interested, let me know (comment here or email me mbaker@mcl.org).

We even have some altered books in our collection – we don’t have many because they tend to be works of art and not reproduced.