Happy St. Bartholomew’s Day! Saint Bartholomew is just one of the patron saints of bookbinders. From what I understand (I’m not Catholic by a long shot) St. Bartholomew is the patron saint of bookbinders because he was flayed alive…hence, he’s associated with leather (and is also the patron saint of tanners)…and guess who uses a […]
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it me (Doing some paper repair on a June 1945 issue of Ladies Home Journal)
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This book is covered in denim AND IT HAS A POCKET on the front cover!! :3
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Here’s a library conservator shelfie.
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Found a map of Texas stuck inside an early 19th cen book of German poetry. I have no idea what book the map belongs to, so now it goes in my pile of “things found in books that weren’t supposed to be in that book”. Cc stufffoundinbooks
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This book went to get library bound in 1984, according to its original check-out card. And guess what? It gets to go get library bound AGAIN, which is why it’s on my bench. I’m taking off the old & worn library binding, cleaning the spine, putting a nice reversibility layer of Japanese tissue on it, […]
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Various books in art, as seen at the Phoenix Art Museum. 1) “The Old Philosopher”, 1645-1650 by Salomon Koninck (Dutch, 1609 – 1656) 2) “Still Life: Vanitas”, c. 1665 by Jan van Dalen (Dutch, Flemish, 1611 – 1677) 3) “St. Margaret of Antioch”, 1520 by Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen (Netherlandish, 1478 – 1533) 4) “Madonna and Child“, 1636 […]
My reaction when our special collections and archives department FINALLY announced they are switching over from white cotton gloves (about which I have MANY feels) to nitrile gloves: So now when you go into our reading room to look at photographs or fragile things, they’re going to give you some nice blue gloves, with which […]
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I had to leave these photographs in the humidification chamber (aka our paper washing sink) overnight because they were so curled. As a result, I had several nightmares about what I would find today when I returned to work this morning. Here they are: 1) Someone came in and stole all 30 of the photographs […]
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Good advice, for bookbinders and non-bookbinders enough. However, sometimes you have to learn when it’s more advantageous to be “good enough” rather than perfect. (Photo by conservethis )