A summer residency at the University of Utah’s Taft-Nicholson Environmental Humanities Education Center (the Center), among the complexity of Montana’s Centennial Valley flora and fauna, provided librarian Randy Silverman with the opportunity to rejuvenate and refocus on the collaborative “From Jikji to Gutenberg” project and the academic volume of essays to be published in early 2026. The Center works to bridge the arts, humanities and sciences in order to engage the world’s increasingly complex environmental problems and hosts classes and events, faculty researchers and artists-in-residence.

“Jikji,” the world’s oldest book printed from movable metal type

A group of 50 scholars has been at work since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, uncovering a little-known history of printing that includes the Korean Buddhist book called “Jikji,” printed in Cheongju, Korea, in 1377—three-quarters of a century before Gutenberg’s Bible was completed in Mainz circa 1454-1455. Part of this international team effort, Silverman is the project’s principal investigator and co-editor of a text comprised of 30 original essays contributed by colleagues from the Library of Congress, Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, Princeton, Stanford and UNESCO. The volume’s papers include works written in Korean and Uzbek and translated into English to provide a range of contemporary global insights on the global origins of early printing.

Gutenberg’s 42-line Bible (Mainz, Germany, circa 1455), the first book printed from movable metal type in the West, is where most English-speaking people believe printing began, but things quickly get more interesting if you work backward from that point. Explains Silverman, “In East Asia, for example, it is not uncommon today for school children to know that the oldest surviving example of printing from movable metal type is the Korean Buddhist book, ‘Jikji.’ This idea is not in question, and the dates are well accepted— both the Gutenberg Bible and ‘Jikji’ were inducted into UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in 2001.”

“Spending time in a protected wilderness area is rejuvenating,” explains Silverman. “Writing in a place free of distractions like email and the internet provided days of uninterrupted thinking, a chance to focus on linking ideas together. My writing benefited from time spent in Montana connecting with the natural world.”

The Center provided Silverman an opportunity to engage in undisturbed writing and research activities, broken up by regularly scheduled meals with faculty fellows freely interacting and sharing ideas. There were also opportunities to participate in hikes in the natural beauty of the surrounding environment, accompanied by naturalists who provided insights into the flora and fauna. Birds such as sandhill cranes and eagles, and mammals including elk and moose were seen with some frequency in the protected landscape that lies just west of Yellowstone National Park.

About the Taft-Nicholson Environmental Humanities Education Center

The Taft-Nicholson Environmental Humanities Education Center was made possible by the generous and visionary work of John and Melody Taft and Bill and Sandi Nicholson. These two couples invested their time and resources to purchase the small town of Lakeview and restore its unique and historic buildings, ultimately creating an unprecedented oasis for learning, research, creativity and collaboration. The Faculty Fellows Program offers University of Utah faculty from all disciplines a supportive, transformative environment and dedicated work time to further their scholarly and creative agendas. Faculty Fellowships run for one to three weeks in the month of July. Faculty are housed in “Thoreauvian” cabins in the Center’s forested University Village.

Explains Melissa Parks, associate director, “The Faculty Fellows Program is uniquely situated to help faculty members not only advance their scholarly agendas, but also to create collaborative connections across the University of Utah campus. The cross-pollination of ideas and projects over the years has been inspirational.”

About the upcoming book

The book, “From Jikji to Gutenberg,” will be published by The Legacy Press in early 2026, and copies can be purchased while supplies last. Once the hard copies are distributed, the work will be posted on the Marriott Library’s website and remain freely accessible for reading and downloading.

By July 2027, a web exhibit will be hosted on the project’s website. Now under construction, this web exhibit will provide a generalist audience with images and the synopsized story of the international origins of printing. Teachers’ guides will also be freely available for downloading. The web exhibit will be opened by a representative from UNESCO and include live discussions about printing history by the “From Jikji to Gutenberg” team. Finally, a children’s book will be published, bringing the story to a younger generation of readers, ages 4-11. The July 2027 date coincides with the 650th anniversary of the printing of the “Jikji.” It is hoped these publications and in-person exhibits at some research libraries like the Library of Congress, Princeton and Marriott Library help to make “Jikji” more commonly known in the West.

Librarians who received Taft-Nicholson Fellowships

Tallie Casucci
“Traversing Rock Climbers’ Oral Histories to Podcast Platforms: Processes, Analytics, and Digital Library Impact,” which evaluated the impact of the Ascent Archive podcast on the digital library oral history collections.

Rebekah Cummings and Anna Neatrour
Co-authors of “The High-Impact Digital Library: Innovative Approaches for Outreach and Instruction”