Celebrating Published Alumni
Fleet Library at RISD and the Alumni Association have established a new book collection featuring alumni authors, illustrators, designers and publishers. RISD’s creative community is prolific in many areas, including publishing. The newly established Fleet Library at RISD Alumni Collection contains books and zines with alumni contributions. It has been developed from books already in circulation at the library and totals more than 475 titles.
Each item has a special bookplate to identify it as part of the collection and the bookplates recognize the alumni who have contributed to the published work. The collection spans a wide range of subjects, including art and design, fiction, children’s literature, food, memoir, social justice and more. The collection includes titles such as Beastly Verse by Joohee Yoon 11 IL, The Way We Work by David Macaulay BArch 69, HD 04, Childproof by Roz Chast 77 PT and Polar Express by Chris van Allsburg MFA 75 SC.
“I am really thrilled about launching the alumni book collection both because of the visibility it will give to RISD’s extensive influence in the fields of publishing represented in our collections and because of its potential to forge a closer connection between Fleet Library and RISD alumni,” says Dean of Libraries Margot McIlwain Nishimura.“We’ll have an area in the library where several shelves are devoted to selected publications from the collection, but patrons also will be able to walk through the stacks and readily see the brightly colored spine labels identifying alumni publications.
We look forward to welcoming our extended community—including alumni, student families and prospective students—to embark on a treasure hunt in the library for these titles when public health conditions allow a full reopening.
