Guide
The subject is paper and the book — two things the last two thousand years of world culture cannot be told without — and the museum follows their long journey with examples drawn from different cultures. Ege University calls it the first of its kind in Türkiye and says no other university museum treats the subject at this scale.
It opened on 12 December 2012, in the Ballian house: one of the nineteenth-century Levantine villas that belong to the university. Close on a thousand objects were brought together through donations from individuals, institutions and artists, and there is an art gallery inside as well.
The arrangement follows paper from its making to its use as art. The ground floor holds a demonstration room for handmade paper, organic writing materials, coloured papers of the world, present-day coloured-paper artists and modern paper art. The floor above turns to the book: book arts, ex libris, printing, artists' books and children's books.
