Book Conservation
This Japanese style pull saw fits into an 18 mm Olfa-style snap off knife handle. The Razorsaw is well made and cuts quickly. Bookbinders may find it useful to make small cuts while shaping wooden boards, trimming trenails, etc. There is another saw blade which I haven’t tried, the S-1162 serrated blade, designed for plastics, which might work on ethafoam. An easy and inexpensive way to add a saw to your tool kit. And whose inner 13 year old boy can resist the appeal of a pocketable saw?
When I first read about the Alberto Manguel/ Robert Lepage collaboration “La bibliotheque, la nuit” at Bibliotheque et Archives Nationales du Quebec, in Montreal, Canada, it sounded nuts. A virtual reality exhibition of the interiors of libraries? Even for someone deeply involved with books, this sounded like a real bore. And it seemed desperate, libraries trying to reinvent themselves as entertainment? But I was curious enough to check it out.
Once I experienced the exhibition, I was floored. Ten libraries from around the world were virtually presented, with a short 2-3 minute narrative describing them. Paper-based books formed the background to many of the scenes and there was a constant subtext alluding to their importance. Overall, it was an oddly reflective and poetic. When experiencing a library, you were generally located in the center of a reading room, and could look in every direction. The Oculus Rift VR simulators were very impressive. The experience felt so real it was disconcerting to look down and not see my own body in the virtual space.
If one of the goals of this exhibition was to establish libraries as a third space, I left doubtful. But I can imagine some kind of “stack view” using virtual reality to help visually find books of interest on the shelves, which would be incredibly useful to those of us researching bindings (except for all the books in boxes…). Or, much like books are now digitized, will libraries themselves be “preserved” using virtual reality in the future, and this will be how we remember and experience this once culturally powerful dinosaur?
If you are attending the joint 2017 AIC/CAC Conference this May in Montreal, this exhibition will still be on. It is within walking distance of the conference site, reservations required.
“The Shakers: America’s Quiet Revolutionaries” is a fantastic temporary exhibition at the New York State Museum, located in Albany, New York. In addition to shaker artifacts, there are a number of gorgeous WPA-era photographs of shaker communities. Another part of the exhibition focuses on inventions, which include a flat broom, washing machine, water turbine, folding steroscope, swivel foot for chair legs, and many others.
I particularly liked their very simple method to turn a press screw, pictured below. Usually this is one of the most complicated areas of a press. By simply offsetting the holes ninety degrees, a tommy bar (called a press pin in bookbinding) can be alternately inserted to complete full rotations from one side of the press. Genius! Also note the simple two part platen holder, which looks a little rinky-dink but apparently has functioned for many years.
Peachey Conservation 