Breadcrumb Home Kim Merker, hand-press printer of poets, is dead at 81 Tuesday, May 28, 2013 Des Moines Register http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/books/kim-merker-hand-press-printer-of-poets-… Kim Merker, founder of the UI Center for the Book, and designer, typesetter, and printer of some of the most beautiful books made in America in the late 20th century, died of cancer in Iowa City at age 81.