By Caitlin Goodman
Background:
In May 2025 I taught my first book-making workshop for a Special Collections class visit. I am not a skilled book worker, so I want to emphasize that this is an approachable workshop to facilitate, regardless of instructor or participant experience level. While experiments in making are applicable to a wide variety of contexts, for transparency it is useful to share specifics about teaching primary source literacies at Swarthmore College. Swarthmore is a very small liberal arts school outside of Philadelphia, and I average around 10 class sessions a semester as one of several Special Collections workers. My class sessions are usually small, averaging around 12 students, and while my colleagues may teach more broadly across Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences, I generally plan sessions for Art History and English that focus on material text analysis and bibliographic description. I have worked at Swarthmore for three years and have taught sessions for most of the English Department faculty across various courses.
…this is an approachable workshop to facilitate, regardless of instructor or participant experience level.
This workshop was taught as part of the “Senior Course Majors Colloquium” in the English Department, a capstone required for all graduating majors not working on an Honors thesis. The course had never previously included a visit to Special Collections, but this past spring it was being taught by a professor I work with regularly. I had freedom to focus the session on the physical processes of book-making with an eye to how these forms effect meaning. English is a popular major at Swarthmore, but not an enormous one, and I teach widely across the department. I knew that most of the 24 students in the colloquium would have encountered me before–and therefore would have practiced some level of material text analysis with me already.
Session:
The session was two hours, which is a comparatively long time for a traditional object study. The class had two dozen students, so I divided them into small groups for the first hour, which was spent rotating through “bibliographical stations.” While this segment isn’t in scope for this post on creative making, the five stations were drawn from previous material text study sessions I’d taught: typecasting/typesetting, imposition, substrates and watermarks, illustration technologies, and signs of use. After an hour of exploration across the stations, all the students had learned a (very) little bit about the material production of books.
For the large group activity, I taught a version of a 3-hole pamphlet binding workshop. The goal was that each student would leave with their own handmade blank book. In part, this was because I wanted students to have a tangible takeaway from the session: a disciplinary keepsake. And while no art supplies are implied in a pamphlet binding exercise, I wanted to incorporate some creativity for those who find craft fun: Swarthmore can be a high-stress place and these students were in the final weeks of their undergraduate journey.
When the group of 24 reconvened for the book-making workshop they were provided with a “kit” of supplies. Each student had a few sheets of paper, one sheet of precut cover stock, a (plastic) bone folder, and an allotment of thread, plus a needle and awl to share across a small group. There are a lot of helpful YouTube videos on the 3-hole pamphlet stitch already, but owing to an ill-timed internet outage, I made my own slideshow for students to follow.
Because I wanted students to practice folding, I had them make quarto pamphlets out of 1-3 sheets of blank letter-size paper. They had just investigated imposition and practiced some folding in the first half of class and were able to reinforce their learning with making. Most of the students ended up making themselves a somewhat unusual quarto in 12s, nesting three twice-folded sheets of paper to make what would be a 24-page text block, once the leaves are opened. Once the blank text block was aligned on the folded cover stock, they took turns punching three holes through the layers (we shared some scrap corrugated cardboard to protect the tables) and then followed the step-by-step sewing instructions to complete their pamphlet.
The final step, cover design, was entirely optional. Students were invited to decorate their covers with an array of stamps and colored ink. The design portion was a hit for the majority of the students and hopefully meant their little pamphlets found some use beyond the session.
The book-making activity was a total success as a kinesthetic synthesis of the bibliographical station activities and as a fun crafting activity. For next time, however, there are some modifications that I’ll incorporate. Several students did not like having to eyeball where the holes in the gathering were to be made–a tendency to perfectionism is not uncommon in Swarthmore undergraduates–so next time I’ll bring along a few rulers for those who find precision freeing. I had made a finished sample as an exemplar, but it became clear that it would be more useful to work through the steps with the class. This was an easy adjustment and I un-made my exemplar so I could lead/follow along with the group. Additionally, as someone who only learned of the primary school guidance of “hamburger vs hot dog fold” deep into adulthood, it was helpful to see that the instruction made immediate sense to about 75% of the class.
The book-making activity was a total success as a kinesthetic synthesis of the bibliographical station activities and as a fun crafting activity.
This session involved more planning than one of the typical material text sessions I teach, but not significantly more. The time spent preparing for the workshop portion, however, was a different kind of class planning since, instead of researching and pulling from our collections, I was scavenging supplies and making kits. For the sake of keeping the book-making workshop accessible and short, I precut the cover stock (I used a couple large sheets of blotting paper) to around 8.75×5.75” so it would fit letter-size sheets once folded. For the text block, I used Permalife bond paper because it “feels” fancier and so that students could appreciate the watermark, having just explored the substrates and watermark station.
The main difference between this workshop and one of my typical class sessions was the expense: generally, a class session costs nothing beyond my time. In this instance, I needed supplies I wasn’t able to source from my colleagues and units around the library, so I spent about $80 from our budget on more bone folders, bookbinders’ needles, waxed thread, and the (entirely optional) stamps and ink. The good news for replicability is that, while there won’t be much time-saving for future iterations of the workshop, there won’t be any additional expenses. I will be repeating this book-making activity: it was appreciated by both students and the professor. Students enthusiastically talked about how they had so much fun and wished more of their classes involved crafting components; and I’m already scheduled to run it again, for the same course, in Spring 2026. A pamphlet-making activity can work without ever mentioning book history, but it was especially complementary as part of this longer session. Students started by thinking about the material text and its means of production, and they left with an example and an experience of both.
Caitlin Goodman is an archivist at the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College. Her research interests include the history of children’s literature and the economics of abolitionist print culture. She teaches sessions broadly focused on the history of the book and the material text but is always eager to talk imposition, print culture, and book arts.