Book Launch Party: Katherine Ruffin

Join us for a book launch party in celebration of Katherine Ruffin's new publication, A Printer with My Hands: The Life and Work of Carl P. Rollins (2025). As a member of a network of printers, designers, and bibliophiles, Carl Purington Rollins (1880-1960) helped transform graphic design and bibliographic studies in the United States. During his career, Rollins designed over 2,000 books and 8,000 pieces of ephemera. By applying the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement and design principles based on historical precedents to contemporary books and ephemera, he influenced the appearance of printed materials in twentieth-century America. This survey of the life and work of Rollins tells the story of the presses and collaborations with which he was involved. Click here for more information.

Professor Katherine M. Ruffin holds an AB in Philosophy from Bryn Mawr College, an MFA in Book Arts from the University of Alabama, and a PhD in Library and Information Science from Simmons University. She has published limited-edition books and broadsides under the imprint Shinola Press since 1994. Her work is included in numerous public and private collections.

Katherine is the Director of the Book Studies Program and Senior Lecturer in Art at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass. Since 2000, she has been teaching in the Book Arts Laboratory in Clapp Library. Her teaching practice is focused on integrating letterpress printing, bookbinding, and papermaking into various aspects of the liberal-arts curriculum. In addition to managing the college's Book Arts Lab and the Papermaking Studio, she directs the activities of the Annis Press, the lab's imprint. She also coordinates the college's library-based Book Studies initiative.

This event is generously supported by the Friends of the Wellesley College Library.