In 2004 the U.K. photographer Martin Parr, along with Gerry Badger, compiled a two-volume book-set entitled
The Photobook: A History that outlined the diverse and unique approaches to publishing photography since the 19th Century.
The Fine Arts Library has a number of these historically relevant photobooks, including some important post-war Japanese volumes, and has recently added 55 new photobooks to the collection, including newly published books by New Zealand photographers Peter Peryer, Harvey Benge, Frank Habicht and Haruhiko Sameshima.
The photographer, and collector of photobooks, John Gossage offers some criteria for defining photobooks:
Firstly, it should contain great work. Secondly, it should make that work function as a concise world within the book itself. Thirdly, it should have a design that complements what is being dealt with. And finally, it should deal with content that sustains an ongoing interest (cited in Parr & Badger, 2004)
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Although these terms may help to define a photobook proper, it is suggested by Martin Parr that such a definition is necessarily flexible and that most photobooks will vary in their adherence to such a definition.
The Fine Arts Library Photobook Collection offers a diverse range of formats, typologies and subjects that demonstrate how a photography book can become “an autonomous art form comparable with a piece of sculpture, a play or a film” (Ralph Prins cited in Parr & Badger, 2004). To maintain this idea of the book as artwork, the majority of photobooks do not have any physical processing and are part of the Fine Arts Library’s Special Collections stored on the Mezzanine floor.