Print and Bookmaking Events & Resources

Uxbridge Historical Centre (UHC)’s Print Shop

Through the support of the GLAM Incubator, Faculty of Information Assistant Professor Claire Battershill and doctoral student J Hughes are developing a collection of resources and events aimed at increasing support for and community access to print-and-bookmaking history, scholarship, and workshops.

In recent months, Battershill and Hughes worked, through a SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant, with the Uxbridge Historical Centre (UHC)’s Print Shop (led during Spring/Summer 2022 by curator and iSchool alum Jessica Lanziner). The historic Print Shop houses a variety of 20th-century letterpress printing technologies and artifacts. The project included conducting a comprehensive inventory of the Print Shop’s historic wood type and planning for further maintenance and revitalization of the Print Shop’s equipment. Battershill and Hughes also developed and facilitated LEGO Prints & Bookmaking Workshops for youth and Print & Letterpress Workshops for adults, hosted at the UHC.

Using the KDMI Makerspace, Battershill and Hughes are currently planning and fabricating low-cost, portable printing presses and associated toolkits, activities, and programming suggestions, for use at UHC and other community spaces, including a future iSkills workshop led by Hughes. Stay tuned also for a winter term exhibition at the iSchool featuring the recently discovered and refurbished UHC Linowriter—an early alternative to a QWERTY-style typewriter—which will examine the machine’s place in printing history.