A pedagogical tool for studying the history of the book: Thirty-five years of bibliographical presses in Australia and New Zealand, 1977-2012

Abstract

In the early 1960s, Philip Gaskell conducted a survey of bibliographical presses in the English-speaking world. Gaskell defined a bibliographical press as 'a workshop or laboratory which is carried on chiefly for the purpose of demonstrating and investigating the printing techniques of the past by means of setting type by hand, and of printing from it on a simple press.' Gaskell's survey found a total of twenty-five presses that he deemed bibliographical. Sixteen of the twenty-five presses had been established in the years between 1960 and 1963. From these results, Gaskell concluded that there was a boom in the creation and subsequent operation of bibliographical presses in the early 1960s.