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500th Blog Post. A Look Back at the First One: Philosophy of Conservation

Eleven years ago when I started this blog. I didn’t have a clear idea of what it would become, I just wanted some kind of presence on the web. Over time it has become a place to investigate book history, advertise my book conservation business, examine some of my tool collection, promote my workshops, dip my toes into the philosophy of craft, and announce new bookbinding tools.

Two years ago, the tools moved to  Peachey Tools.  I use instagram for more image based sharing. The board slotting machine has a following among book conservators, my book conservation and tool businesses keep chugging along, and I do a fair amount of teaching.

Looking over my posts, they keep returning to four main topics: tools, books, craft, and conservation.

An unintended benefit of sustained blogging is how it feeds longer term writing projects: sometimes by immediate gratification, sometimes by regular practice, and sometimes by feedback from readers. Tom Conroy in particular deserves a thank you for his 52 comments, many of which contain new information, and several which exceed the word count of the original post!

Below is my first blog post — a mini-manifesto, really — my philosophy of conservation. Those who know me may be surprised I’m not as pessimistic concerning the future of book conservation as I was in 2008. The quality and sensitivity of book conservation has increased in the past 11 years, at least from what I see of it, and  book conservation education continues to evolve with change as society and the uses and values of books change. But there is still much work to do. Onward!

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Philosophy of Conservation (originally published  17 April 2008)

It was almost 100 years ago that Douglas Cockerell wrote, “Generally speaking, it is desirable that the characteristics of an old book should be preserved… It is far more pleasant to see an old book in a patched contemporary binding, than smug and tidy in the most immaculate modern cover.”   Today, I am disheartened to find what little has changed; rows and rows of rebound or insensitively rebacked volumes, giving no hint of their original nature.  All to often, books and the information they contain are needlessly  destroyed by inappropriate or outdated techniques.

As microfilming, photocopying, and digital methods of storing and transmitting conceptual information become more and more prevalent, I feel the intrinsic aspects of books and paper artifacts: their physical construction, material content, aesthetics, and tactile qualities, are irreplaceable and will prove to be the most valuable.  These are the aspects I preserve for future generations.

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Bookbinding and the Care of Books Lyons and Burford,  p. 306

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What Happens to the Manufacturers of Bookbinding Machinery?

Desk blotter advertising. Late 1940’s?

In the 21st century, bookbinders are understandably nervous concerning the continued availability of essential machinery and replacement parts. Many of the board shears and guillotines we use on a daily basis are more than a hundred years old. This equipment not only needs to be maintained, but periodically their blades need to be resharpened or replaced. The last New York City grinding service, Ace, moved to New Jersey a number of years ago, priced out of Soho.

I support Ace by using their services. I also collect and preserve bits of history associated with these types of industries, such as this desk blotter ephemera I scored over the past weekend. This is the second bookbinding related desk blotter I’ve found in the past month, a little unusual,  though synchronous finds are not uncommon in dedicated flea market and antique mall exploration.

The Wapakoneta Co. was sold in 2009, but is still making knives and industrial cutting products. But as the numbers of newspapers, books, and other paper based products continues to shrink, what will happen to these vital ancillary trades — like board shear blade making and resharpening — that hand binders and conservation labs rely on?

 

 

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An Early Nineteenth Century French Expandable Bookbinding

Lithograph illustrating the “Reliure Mobile”, n.d. Source: Charles Wood Rare Books Catalog 179

Expandable bookbindings are a fascinating subcategory of Account Book Binding. They are usually designed so that the owner can add or substract individual leaves. Six pieces of ephemera describing a nineteenth century French version of this unusual binding style are for sale from Charles Wood Rare Books, Catalog 179, #13. They were bound (permanently) by Leon Gruel in the 19th century. If you happen to have an extra $4,250.00 lying around, my birthday is coming up. Thanks in advance!

In the meantime, there are bits of internet flotsam and jetsam concerning this structure on the internet. It is difficult to understand from the image above, and almost as impenetrable from the google translated version from Le Normand’s Manual du Relieur below. Moulin du Verger’s complete version of the book is online. It was originally published 1827, but this description of the Relieur Mobile is from the 1900 edition. It may also appear in earlier editions.

I think the book functions by tightening the spine lining material — cloth, or skin — into a recess in the back board. It is tightened by the threaded rods, which are angled and clamp the pages with a bar at the back of the textblock. In order for this to work, the total width of the spine piece of the case has to be fixed. The drawing seems to indicate this. But if anyone has a better understanding….

Here is the relevant passage: “This binding, in which the whole mechanism is on the back, makes it possible to link provisionally all kinds of periodical collections, newspapers, music, etc., and even paperbacks or a collection of engravings, which one would like to read or leaf through before connect permanently. This will avoid the rustling of these collections, whose cover in simple paper never offers to the sheets that compose them a support capable of preventing that they are soon broken or crumpled.

The back is composed of two flat-iron rods: the angles on the inner side are chamfered, and diminish all the more, especially towards the middle, the width of the rod, which then presents an angle; these two sticks thus more easily retain the sheets that they are intended to tighten; the action of these sticks on the edge of these sheets actually raises a little the part, which protrudes and will lodge in the back, so that this part, abutting against the sticks, gives a solidity more to the binding by retaining more the leaflets that make up the collection. The chopsticks are attached to each of the two sheets of cardboard which complete the binding by hinged webs, and glued to the paper which covers the iron rod, which paper is prepared so as to adhere to said rod; these canvases allow chopsticks to have a movement that produces the same effect as a broken back. The canvas can easily be replaced by parchment, skin, etc.

Each rod is rounded at its extremities, one of which carries a milled copper barrel in all its length, and the other is pierced with a half-thickened eye to receive the neck of the screw of pressure; this screw serves to diminish or increase the spacing or the width of the back, according to the necessity imposed by the greater or lesser thickness of the collection which is to be introduced into this binding. However, as the length of the barrel could be an obstacle to the use of this binding for small quantities of leaflets, the addition of one or two wooden sticks, hollowed so as to be able to rely on the iron rods, fill the space not occupied by the sheets.

To guarantee the back of the inserted leaflets, a strip of paper, skin, etc., is glued to one of the iron rods; it comes down on the backs of the sheets, that it guarantees friction, and is thus fixed by the same pressure as that which acts on the sheets to retain them.

The head of the two screws is hollowed out for the introduction of a key for the pressure service; these recesses can be replaced by holes, as is practiced at the heads of the compasses.

The key in question is made like those used for this last object.

The sticks, as well as the cover, the barrels, the screws, etc., can undergo modifications, either in the choice of the material, in their cut or their notches, according to the different applications of this binding which can be applied to all formats of any kind of printed, engraved, lithographed publication and even to manuscripts; but the economy of: the invention will always be the same since it resides in the use of rods, as has just been said, in their meeting by a barrel crossed by a pressure screw, and in the assembling these parts to a blanket.”