Apprenticeships, internships, and community outreach programs expand our involvement in the community. Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts is dedicated to furthering knowledge and appreciation of hand papermaking and book arts, including letterpress printing, bookbinding and artists' books. We work to preserve historical techniques while promoting research and innovations in the media of book and paper arts. The soul of MCBA is the studio spaces where you find masters and novices working at letterpress printing, hand bookbinding and papermaking. In addition to the studios, there is an exhibition space, a studio shop, an archive and reference library, and offices.
Visitors are welcome to observe the book art activity close-up.
MCBA serves artists, students, teachers, designers, writers, families, youth, and book lovers through a variety of participatory programs. Fifteen years after opening its doors, MCBA is the most comprehensive independent book arts facility in the nation. Pacific Center for the Book Arts was founded in 1978 by a group led by book artists and educators Frances Butler, Betsy Davids, and Kathleen Walkup, and soon established itself as the premier book arts organization on the West Coast. A national center for craft education located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina. The school also sponsors artists' residencies, educational outreach programs, and a craft gallery open to the public.