The Texas Digital Library awarded the 3D-printed History of the Book Education (3Dhotbed) Project their Excellence in Digital Libraries Award! This award honors overall excellence in one or more areas of digital library practice and is one of six annual awards given out during The Texas Conference on Digital Libraries hosted annually in Austin, Texas. To qualify for this honor, the 3Dhotbed project demonstrated collaborative work on an innovative digital collection project that uses unique technology and serves to advance digital collections standards.

The 3Dhotbed project is a collaborative effort of Courtney Jacobs (Head of Outreach and Community Engagement, UCLA Library Special Collections), Kevin M. O’Sullivan (Curator of Rare Books & Manuscripts at Cushing Memorial Library & Archives, Texas A&M University), and Marcia McIntosh (Digital Production Librarian, University of North Texas Libraries). The project started with Jacobs’ idea to make a type-casting hand mould at Texas A&M’s Book History Workshop more accessible to those who want to enhance their courses and projects with the hands-on experience of casting type. In partnership with O’Sullivan and McIntosh, the 3Dhotbed team published its first toolkit in 2017.

The 3Dhotbed project provides educators with the resources and materials they need to teach early book history, including the mechanics of the hand press, bookbinding, typecasting, and woodcuts. This online resource provides access to pedagogical materials made up of instructional videos, informational handouts, and a typecasting toolkit that educators can print on their own 3D printers instead of buying costly equipment. All of the data files necessary to create these replica teaching models are available to download at no cost from the UNT Digital Library.

Congratulations to the 3Dhotbed team for their outstanding contribution to the advancement of digital libraries!

Meet the Team

Courtney Jacobs received her MSLIS from Syracuse University. She is the Head of Outreach and Community Engagement for the UCLA Library Special Collections. She has developed and delivered many lectures and workshops on book history and printing history utilizing primary source materials in support of teaching faculty’s curriculum and learning outcomes.

Kevin O’Sullivan serves as the Curator of Rare Books & Manuscripts at Cushing Memorial Library & Archives, Texas A&M University, where he also directs the Book History Workshop. He received his MSIS from the University of Texas at Austin and is currently working toward his Ph.D. in English at Texas A&M University.

Marcia McIntosh received her master’s in Information Studies from the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Information. She is the Digital Production Librarian at the University of North Texas, where she assists in coordinating and managing the creation of digital collections.

Feature image: Marcia McIntosh accepting the award on behalf of her teammates Kevin O’Sullivan and Courtney Jacobs.