Visual artists and musicians have been inspiring each other for centuries.  This section of the Book Arts LibGuide focuses on bookworks that are inspired by or specifically address music. More general or unique works are below, other subpages include groupings of bookworks that address jazz and composers.  Also included are a few works inspired by the larger idea of sound.

Kate Ferrucci (editor and publisher). Soundings: Collected Stories from Bloomington's Music Community. Bloomington, IN: People to People Press, 2006. Arts Library Special Collections call number  NJ18.F42525 A12 2006 (LC)+ Oversize Unit 2

Housed in a case typically used for musical instruments and accompanied by a CD, this limited edition, fine press book by Kate Ferrucci documents personal stories from figures in the music community of Bloomington, Indiana, home of Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. 

Alison Leialoha Milham. Uluhaimalama, Legacies of Lili'uokalani: Music and Mana'o of Hawai'i's Last Queen. [Tallahassee, FL]: Great Basin Press, 2012. Arts Library Special Collections call number DU627.4 .M55 2012 (LC)

Alison Milham uses the guise of deluxe music recording packaging as a device to teach about the history of Hawai’i as a place of occupation. The recording is of music written and played by Queen Lili‘uokalani, the last queen of Hawai’i (reign 1891-1893).  She was overthrown in 1893 by a group of European and American businessmen who did not like her attempt to restore power to native Hawaiians. Six years later President McKinley added Hawai’i as a state. Milham’s bookwork also includes a letterpress printed booklet “Uncovering Hawai’i's Past– Beyond Textbooks and Travel Guides,” postcards that look like an image of paradise but remind us of its difficult history with the slogan “Hawaii: a nation under illegal U.S. occupation since 1898,” a lei-making kit with paper flowers printed with the signatures on the Anti-Annexation Petitions of 1897, and a stencil of the queen with directions for use to spread the message.