Max Yela has been Head of the Special Collections Department at the UWM Libraries since 1994. Prior to this, he was the public services librarian for Special Collections at the University of Delaware, 1985-1994. As an Adjunct Associate Professor for the UWM Department of Visual Art he teaches a course in Book Arts Survey and lectures on book-arts concepts and theory throughout the curriculum. In addition, he also curates several exhibits a year for the department, and serves as the official library liaison to Visual Art.
Yela's research uses media and information theories to understand and articulate the book as an art medium, the presence of the book in culture and society and its epistemological consequences, the intersection of print tradition and the emerging digital environment, and how artists do research. He is the author of numerous exhibition catalogs, including Artists' Prints in Books (1994), The Shape and Color of Research: An Exhibition of New Artwork Based on Research in Special Collections. . . . (2002), and the 5th International Book & Paper Arts Triennial (2008). He is also the author of the artist's book La Bendición, designed and printed by Caren Heft at the Arcadian Press in 2009.
