This minuscule volume can’t be read in the traditional fashion – it’s a flip book!

Its author, artist and information professional Stephanie Ognar, received her BFA in Art Education, MFA in Art and Design, and MS in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

She created the book in 1999 by videotaping herself, converting the video to book pages using the FlipBook software program, printing the images on her home inkjet printer, having the pages cut by a local bookbinder, and then sorting and perfect binding the books.

Eighty images comprise the work, 36 of which we transformed into a GIF videoclip to share the flip book experience with our blog subscribers and instagram followers. Follow us @middleburyspecialcollections.

Special Collections houses an additional three of Ognar’s twelve flip books, Bed, Coat, and Kiss. The series showcases everyday gestures, each with brief eye contact that connects the artist to her audience. In turn, the viewer reciprocates this connection by controlling the speed and direction of the flip book, engaging with the text on a more personal level.