I used to hate digital books. The very idea made want to retch – the thought of losing paper books! Whaaat-?! How could anyone choose a glowing screen over real, touchable, beige pages that slide underneath your fingertips?

That was before. And now? I don’t hate digital books. I realized that the advent of e-books doesn’t necessitate the extinction of paper books. At least, not yet. If anything, those people that love paper books love them all the more. And now maybe paper books are more like art or design objects. “It’s got to be special to be in print” - this is how I make sense of it all, as simplistic as this reasoning may be. Children’s books and artists’ books fall into that “special” category, as far as I’m concerned. Sure, you can read an e-book to a kid but it is a very different experience than reading a paper picture book, one through which a kid can rifle back and forth, crinkle the pages (ouch) and see it all interact: paper, ink, words, illustrations. Better to have the book pages get all greasy and drawn on than your iPad or Kindle, right? On pages, those marks are the proof of love. On an iPad, those thumb prints are annoying. Not to dis the digital, though; I’m intrigued. And yes, I was shamelessly peering over the guy-sitting-next-to-me-on-the-subway’s shoulder yesterday as he flipped through several magazines on his iPad. It’s pretty cool. And I saw the digital version of The New Yorker and interacted with all its cool bits and pieces, and it was mind-blowing. But I still like the paper magazine because…well, it’s paper. Which brings me to paper which then brings me to books (we’re already there, actually) which brings me to artists’ books. I’ve had the privilege of helping my former academic advisor Professor Keith Dietrich (hailing from South Africa) in his research on artists’ books during his residency here in New York City. He is exploring the topic with gusto, camera in hand, and permission passes to all sorts of research facilities. I’ve been able to visit the New York Public Library’s special collections and MOMA’s research library in Queens to view some of books in their collections. I’m amazed at the range of books we’ve seen - from size to technique to subject matter. One book folded out into a poster size spread; another book (Buzz Spector’s A Passage - see photo) had pages chopped consecutively narrower and narrower until the final book was a wedge. Much like a big piece of cheese! Now THIS is something an e-book (as it stands now) could never do: be a piece of cheese. The actual book form, texture, text, and illustration in artists’ books are all equally important. I’m including some of my favorites here. I was excited to find a stash of books published by Ediciones Vigía, the community book press in Cuba that produce