Photography: A Research Guide: Photobooks

The term photobook has only recently been used with regularity as a cataloging term. It can appear as a subject to describe photobooks as well as books about photobooks, but only in books that have been published or cataloged in the past ten years or so. Here are some other subject terms that are helpful in finding photobooks:

Artists' books
Photography, Artistic
Artists' books > Specimens

Ever since William Henry Fox Talbot, photographers have presented their works in books. The Photobook is a beloved format for presenting a gallery of images--a story, a concept, a collection--in a container that can be published and disseminated to as wide or narrow an audience as the artist determines.

Here are some strategies for finding photobooks in the Cornell University Library collections:

In this example, helpful subject terms include:

Photography, Artistic
Photobooks

Other subject terms to try:
Artists' books
Photography literature.

Please be aware that photobooks may not be specifically called photobooks. They are part of the collections in several libraries at Cornell, so you may discover them in several different collections. The examples at the left are all from the Artists' Book Collection at the Mui Ho Fine Arts Library, but there are wonderful photobooks at other libraries, too, such as these:

Subject headings for books about photobooks also use the subject photobooks. Look for these terms:

Photobooks
Photography literature
Literature and photography
Publishers and publishing