Check out this gold stamped anteater on the cover of this book! This is a 1914 edition of “Through the Brazilian wilderness” by Theodore Roosevelt, currently in our general collections. You can also read it online on the HathiTrust website, for free!
This is an old-books-about-Egypt appreciation post. I love publisher’s bindings, and Egyptian art, so this was a fun excursion into our stacks. These are all circulating books, by the way, not part of our special collections. Also I can’t get over that typeface they used on “Redemption of Egypt”. SO pretty! Anybody know what it’s called, […]
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 […]
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 )
Detail from “The Annunciation” by Girolamo Da Santa Croce, c 1540-1550 An oil on wood panel painting in the collection of the Columbia Museum of Art, in Columbia, South Carolina. Photo by conservethis
Virgin Annunciate, 14th Century Polychrome Wood Sculpture. An Italian sculpture in the collection of the Columbia Museum of Art, in Columbia, South Carolina. Part of a pair, along with Archangel Gabriel. Photo by conservethis.
Circulation just sent me this book, which apparently is actually the halves of TWO different books bound together accidentally by our commercial binder. As far as I can tell, the first half of the book is “What we talk about when we talk about love" by Raymond Carver, and the second half is a book by […]
The Journal of the Guild of Book Workers is now available online, for FREE! The Guild of Book Worker’s Journal is an annual publication containing in-depth articles, technical how-to’s, essays, profiles, illustrated exhibit reviews. The subjects cover general matters relating to the hand book crafts. Included are contemporary creative book arts as well as traditional […]
“How I Spent My Summer Vacation” or A Conservator Makes A Really Cool Book I just got back from a week of bookbinding summer camp, where I learned how to make a medieval style of book called a girdle book! It has laced-on wooden boards that are beveled to fit into the shoulders of the […]
At a book arts conference this week, making a medieval girdle book with Karen Hanmer! 😀 We’re sewing the textblock on double cords, using a packed sewing method that’s basically like a figure eight around both cords.