Emily E. Porritt and Professor Pamela Barrios, Conservation Laboratory, Harold B. Lee Library
Currently, there is a lack of aides for book conservators to use during the decision making process of conserving bound materials, or books. A practical aid for the decision making process should first help conservators identify the way the book was bound. Second, the aid should help conservators decide how to conserve the book. The conservation treatment chosen should prolong the book’s life and preserve the book’s history.
The Book Conservation Catalog is a website maintained by the Book and Paper Group of the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) aimed at filling this need. The catalog gives detailed descriptions of bound materials frequently found in historical and scholarly collections. Conservators will use the catalog as a guide in the decision making process of conserving bound materials. The Book Conservation Catalog website is currently not available to the public; permission has been received to share the address of the website in this report: http://aic.stanford.edu/testarea/bcc/BCCool/. The basic framework of the website is displayed along with outlines of ongoing research and research that has already been completed.
The structure of the book is divided into ten different categories to enable conservators in the process of quickly identifying needed information on the catalog website. One of these categories is board attachment. Board attachment is the way the front and back covers of a book are attached to the textblock. (The textblock is generally viewed as the “content” of the book, or its pages. For example, material in the textblock may include the title page, table of contents, and text of the book.) The board attachment section identifies different methods of attaching the boards.
In order for the catalog to be a practical aid, the first step in preparing the board attachment section was to identify the fundamental systems of attachment. An outline of eight fundamental systems had already been brainstormed and approved with AIC. Historical models for five of the methods had been made and photographed. The next steps were to upload the photographs and to create diagrams and write explanations for these five fundamental attachments.
When the photographs of the models were uploaded the basic layout of the website proved confusing. Before the diagrams and explanations could be written the framework of the layout had to be adjusted. My skills in web design, coupled with my knowledge of bookbinding structure, added much to the process as my mentor has no training in web design. The revisions that were made and approved by AIC affected the basic layout of the entire website. Improvements included creating links to related pages within the website and using images consistently throughout to simplify descriptions that incorporated photographs and diagrams.
The second step of constructing diagrams and explanations was then carried out. Different styles of diagrams were researched until a style best suited for demonstrating board attachment was agreed upon. The historical models were then diagrammed and explanations of the board attachment methods were written. These explanations were based on research of each method and narrowed to the most important points. The diagrams and explanations are now in the process of being uploaded to the website.
The second aspect of a practical aid is to help in choosing a method best for conserving a book. Originally, an area in the board attachment category was going to be dedicated to methods of conservation. However, due to the vast amount of problems that can arise with each method of board attachment, the conservation section is a new category. This category of conservation methods is still being developed.
In the future, basic research will be uploaded onto the Book Conservation Catalog and the website will be published on the Internet for public use. New research is continually being done in the book conservation field; this research will continually be uploaded. As a result, the website will give book conservators a constant and consistent guide in the decision making process of conserving bound materials. This will improve book conservation techniques in individual conservators and in the conservation community as a whole.
Working on the board attachment category of the Book Conservation Catalog has furthered my knowledge of fundamental board attachment methods and principles. In addition, my ability to effectively communicate through prose, photography, and diagrams has increased. This experience and knowledge supplements my formal education in book conservation; it enables me to complete a higher quality of work in the book conservation field than I could have before.