Cradles for Miniature Books

I gave a training session to a colleague last week, she needed to know how to display a group of miniature books safely and so I showed her a very simple, cost-effective method for making custom cradles out of 20 pt. board. 

My colleague has good hand skills although hands-on is not her primary role (she talks about this in her blog post), and I felt comfortable showing her the method and then leaving her to the task.  This can be a tough choice for a conservator who, in most cases, has the primary responsibility for the physical well-being of the collection.  Should I examine and document every item that goes on exhibit? should I make every custom cradle and install every item to ensure that nothing happens to our books? Perhaps, in an ideal world yes, but those who work in libraries know that life is far from ideal.  There are many projects and exhibits that happen on short notice and the more people who can "pitch in" the better.  Being the lone book conservator at a large special collections library means I have to make strict choices about how I spend my time so that the really needy books get the treatment they need.  Having trained my colleague means I can step back from the exhibits role just a little, and knowing that I do spend a lot of time with our library collections and will see or hear about any difficulties gives me confidence in this choice. 

Finished Binding

I've published a lot of "process" posts, so it is about time that I catch up with some posts about finished treatments.  As I outlined in my "Not Too Matchy-Matchy" post, I have been working on Thomas Jefferson's original1825  list of books to be purchased for the UVa Library.  I recently finished the treatment, after washing, mending and sewing the pages.

I laced on the boards, pared and applied the leather spine as well as the marbled paper.  The final step was tooling a decorative line on the leather next to the marbled paper.

hot tool on the left, final binding in the middle, practice leather on the right

My model binding had blind lines tooled across the spine, but with such a thin book that wasn't a possibility, also I didn't want the 1825 manuscript to be a replica of my model so much as look like it would be the next notebook on the shelf in Jefferson's library. 

20th century "interim" binding on left, my conservation binding in the center, model binding on the right.

I'm really pleased with the way the binding turned out, not only is the laced-on structure stronger, but the materials are more in keeping with the time and place where the manuscript originated.

Not Too "Matchy-Matchy"

Conservation treatment is not about recreating the original artifact, and there is no way to really turn back the clock to make an old, well-used book look new.  As I have mentioned in my posts about treating Micrgraphia or Il Quattro Libri de'll Archittetura sometimes there is not enough of the original binding to do anything but make an educated guess as to what the original binding might have been.

One of the books I'm working on now is Thomas Jefferson's 1825 catalog of books for the UVa Library, his "shopping list" that was used to create the University's first library.  The book is actually two signatures from what must have been a larger blank journal.  At some point (probably in the early 20th century) the signatures were sewn into a new binding with blank pages at the beginning and the end to bulk out the text block and a new cover of leather and marbled paper.  It probably looked really spiffy back in the day, but the "new" binding did not have nearly the strength or archival soundness of the handmade paper from Jefferson's day.  By the time I saw the book, the added blank pages were falling out and the front cover was starting to detach from the binding.

several Poe signatures!

Binding a thin book can be very tricky, but I think I've come up with a structure that works, so then the question becomes how do I want the final binding to look?  Where does this catalog fit in to our Library collection?  Since I am confident that the original signatures were once part of a blank book and I know that Charlottesville had at least one stationer (seller of blank books and stationery) in business in the 1820's, Ebenezer Watts, I was at first thinking I'd do another reverse-calf binding like I'd done for the First Minute Book.  However, I looked through the Library's archival collection of record books from the early days of UVa and noticed that a number of the record books were simple reverse calf spines with marbled paper over the boards.  So I decided that I would model the binding on the first circulation book for the library. 

The library staff agreed with my concept, so then I had to track down period-appropriate marbled paper to cover the boards, which is not as easy as it sounds.  There are many different styles of marbled paper and the brightly colored, combed and fanned types are much more popular today. But the good news is that that there are almost as many marbling nerds out there as book nerds and I was able to find a paper that fit the time period.  The vendor offered to match any one of the marbled papers in our collection, but I didn't want it match so much as "fit in". 

Given these examples:

 

I received these two papers:

 I've placed them next to the leather I plan to use for the reverse goat spine.  I like the one on the left, what do you think?  Tune in next month for pictures of the finished product!

 

Qualifications of a Siberian Haridresser

This pamphlet was on exhibit for way too long.  Even with UV filtered light in the exhibit cases, paper documents can get bleached.  By "bleaching", I mean the yellowing apparent on the blank margin of the paper.  The white-ish stripe in the first printed column is where the Mylar strap held the pamphlet open and protected the paper from the light.  Not all of the items in the exhibit show this level of damage, so I'll be reviewing the lighting and other exhibit conditions that could be affecting this particular piece. 

Exhibits can be tricky.  They're a wonderful opportunity to showcase your collections, bringing out items that the average visitor to your institution may not know about and yet you are exposing your collections to potential damage that you may not be aware of until too late.

Cross Post- AIC 40th Annual Meeting- "Mass De-Acidification Today"

The American Institute for Conservation (AIC) is the national association for conservation professionals.  We meet once a year to share information on conservation treatment, current research, or practical tips related to our work.

I attended a joint session of the Book and Paper Group/Research and Technical Studies, with the Archives Conservation Discussion Group and the Library Collections Conservation Discussion Group for a discussion of "Mass De-Acidification Today" and provided a recap for the AIC blog "Conservators Converse". So for those who were unable to attend, or who can't get enough alkaline reserve- click here!

Palladio - AT

Last August I had a post "Next Up" that was a preview of my treatment of Andrea Palladio's book "I qvattro libri dell'architettvra". It was part of an exhibit loan to the UVa art museum, so as soon as the

front cover of the new limp vellum binding

 treatment was done, the book was out the door to join "Variety, Archeology and Ornament". Now that the book is back from loan, I have had the opportunity to do final "after treatment" (AT) photo doc, so you can see the results.  Photographic and written documentation is a crucial part of conservation treatment, not only for the sake of documenting the "before" and "after" condition of the book, but also for documenting my working process so that I, or another conservator, years from now will be able to follow what worked well, or what didn't work well.

I'm sharing the documentation pictures that I will archive with the rest of my treatment notes.  Perhaps they look a little stiff, with the labels and the color bar?

front opening, showing how the textblock laces into the cover

 But, documentation is a formal process, capturing and communicating details for future reference.  In creating this conservation binding I consulted articles and reference books on limp velum bindings as well as a model binding I made in graduate school. 

My documentation will also describe the materials I used to create the limp vellum binding, and the sources from which I purchased them.  Alum tawed pig skin was used for the sewing supports and goat parchment was used for the cover.  Not the sort of items you find in your average corner store!

 

new endsheet and original title page

That said, the treatment of this Palladio volume was incredibly fun.  The research that informed my decision making process allowed me to spend time with another copy of this book, and revisit a binding structure that I had enjoyed during my graduate student days.  Conservation treatment inspires exploration through close examination of a particular artifact, but then leads you to a broader examination of books and bindings from a similar time and place.

 

page opening toward the center

I'll post more details in the next couple of weeks, showing some of the "during" steps and some more pictures related to my background research.  For now, take a look at the picture on the right, notice the openability of the book, there are no weights holding the book open, just the weight of the pages, draping smoothly and the vellum flexing in response.  Also notice the finger smudges halfway up the margins from more than 500 years of people flipping through the pages.