Artists of . . . . . . the book.

The artists of books, as distinct from their authors, are having their day in our neighborhood, with related exhibitions at the Boston Public Library and Harvard's Houghton Library in Cambridge, not to mention commercial gallery attention. For readers too far away to drop in, here is a sample tour of the Houghton show, ``Artists of the Book in Boston, 1890-1910,'' in the company of Nancy Finlay, assistant curator of printing and graphic arts, who wrote the catalog. Excerpts from her words appear w ith the works they describe on this and the facing page.