Tag: book conservation

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A Bookbinding is not a Picture Frame

“In point of fact, a stack of printed or handwritten sheets of paper does not become a book until it is bound. For this reason the binding cannot be seen apart from the book and differs therefore from the picture frame, with which it is sometimes compared but in which there is seldom any structural parallel with painting.” Jan Storm van Leeuwen [1]

Thinking of a book’s binding as something independent from “the book” as an entirety is a serious misconception. This raises some practical concerns:  if a book has been disbound, and perhaps remains disbound for the purposes of display, is it no longer a book? Does it now belong in a special category of the book; a disbound book? [2]   Much descriptive terminology adds similar qualifiers; an unbound book, a rebound book, etc…. A work of art remains a work of art if it is in its frame or not.  A textblock cannot just be taken out of its binding without radically altering its ontological status as a book.

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[1] Jan Storm van Leeuwen. Dutch Decorated Bookbinding in the Eighteenth Century, Volume 1: General Historical Introduction. Den Haag: Hes & De Graff, 2006. p. 41.

[2] The extreme of this might be the leaf book, a new book made  to highlight a single leaf from another book. There are a number of excellent essays, including one by a lawyer/ leaf book collector who considers ethics and international law in the catalog to the exhibition Disbound and Dispersed: The Leaf Book Considered. Chicago: The Caxton Club, 2005.

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The Use of Parchment to Reinforce Split Wooden Bookboards

I was quite pleased to receive the new Journal of the Institute of Conservation, Vol. 33, No. 1, 2010, since Alexis Hagadorn and I have an article included in it titled “The use of parchment to reinforce split wooden bookboards, with preliminary observations into the effects of RH cycling on these repairs”

Here is the abstract:

“Split wooden boards are a common problem in early book bindings, and treatment can be complicated by the need to disturb original components as little as possible. A technique used to reinforce or rejoin fully or partially split wooden boards using parchment has been evaluated. A reinforcing parchment strip has sometimes been employed to treat cracks in wooden musical instruments and examples of reinforcing strip repairs to wooden bookboards have also been observed. The books considered in this article presented an opportunity to use this technique and make observations about its merits. With favourable results but some questions, the authors undertook a systematic study of this method, considering and comparing several options for re-joining split wooden boards. Samples of some common repair techniques were made and subjected to relative humidity cycling to compare how each method might withstand extreme RH fluctuations at a constant temperature. The response of reinforcing strip repairs to RH changes showed a negative impact on join adhesion within the sample group, which may indicate that modifications are necessary to improve this technique. When re-examined after three years, the treated boards were intact and stable.”

It took over four years from the start of the project until the revised manuscript was accepted for publication, but it is gratifying to see the results of our research, and images of a couple of my treatments in a peer reviewed journal.  Unfortunately, the journal is not available online yet, although I have heard it is in the works.  And if you are not a member of ICON, this single issue costs, gulp, $228.oo!


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Wooden Book Board Lacing Exposed

Above:  The anchoring and lacing pattern on the inner face of a wooden book board from 1453.

Not only is it remarkable that the tight “S” twist double cords are still held tightly by the treenail, but I find the almost casual tool marks from a gouge beautiful.  They look like they were cut yesterday, although they were protected and covered with a vellum pastedown that became detached at some point in the past.  Judging from the splintered wood on the right hand side, it looks as if the hole was drilled first, then the channel cut from left to right. The cuts must have started at the bottom, and worked upwards, ending with what I can imagine was an attempt to clean up the slightly splintered wood. And like most attempts to rectify an error, it only made things worse.  A bookbinders mistake from five centuries ago?  Notice the split in the board is not caused by the treenail or the two iron nails at the top and bottom of the image, which is often the case.

I’m always impressed by any mechanical object that is still intact and functioning after 557 years.