Barbara Lazarus Metz studied interior design at California State University and earned a BFA at Mundelein College in 1973 and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1977. She taught widely over the years, including stints at the Jane Addams Center, Loyola University, the School of the Art Institute, and in the Chicago Public Schools. She also worked as a visiting artist in several Midwestern arts organizations including Evanston’s Paper Press. She was an active member of many Chicago and national arts organizations including the Caxton Club and the Guild of Book Workers. She founded Artists Book Works in 1983 and closed it in 1993, when the staff of ABW joined forces with that of Paper Press and became part of Columbia College Chicago as the Center for Book and Paper Arts within the Department of Interdisciplinary Arts. Metz kept her studio in the former ABW premises and taught at Columbia College for a number of years thereafter. She died in 2011 and Columbia College named a fellowship in book arts in her name.

Artists Book Works was founded by Barbara Lazarus Metz in 1983 as a non-profit studio to offer instruction and work space to book artists in the Chicago area. ABW offered classes in a number of fields relating to book art (calligraphy, binding, paper decoration, printing), sponsored exhibitions, including a long running international mail art annual called Winter in Chicago, hosted many visiting artists, and made its equipment available to local artists. Regular teachers included Mary Jo Bang, Pamela Barrie, Melissa Jay Craig, Barbara Korbel, and Miles DeCoster. Other artists who worked at ABW and whose original art is represented in the archive (often in early examples) include: Caren Heft, Amos Paul Kennedy Jr., Bea Nettles, Audrey Niffenegger, and the Zhou brothers. ABW closed its doors in 1993 upon the formation of the Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College.