1936. Book Repairs at the Urbana Free Library Works Progress Administration Photographic File. Pictures from the Urbana Daily Courier, Champaign County Historical Archives, Urbana Free Library. [x]
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I love the gilder using his hair to get just enough grease to help pick up the sheets of gold leaf from his book of gold leaf sheets. Edit: I have been corrected! The gilder is actually using static electricity, not grease, from his hair to help grab the sheet of gold leaf. Thank you, […]
Sometimes being a book conservator means you have to do a little dental work on Dracula’s fangs. This is a pop-up book that’s going into an upcoming exhibit in our library – unfortunately, one side of Dracula’s teeth had become detached and pushed back into his mouth. Using tweezers, I carefully unfolded his teeth, and […]
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Or conservation…or bookbinding.
This was a book that was damaged by a dog, and “fixed” with packing tape by a patron. And this is also why the staff at the library will often stress that patrons should not attempt their own repairs of library books. The “repair” often does more damage than helps, and won’t actually save you from […]
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Back in 1977, one of our library staff literally stapled some replacement pages into this book. It got the job done, but the results are not that ideal, as it makes it hard to read those pages and could tear the original pages they are stapled to. But this was way before my library had […]
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I spotted this tiger-striped repair on one of our books in our special collections stacks. Looks like a “folk repair”, aka not something done by one of our conservation staff here at the library, but it’s hard to say for sure. The technique used is one we use all the time on books of all types […]
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I just think this binding is the cutest little thing, what with its combination of floral paste paper and marbled paper. I also miiiiiight have said, “Oh! aren’t you the cutest little thing! Yes you are!” aloud when I was in our special collections reading room.
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Anyone want to take a stab at identifying or dating this German bible? It’s missing the title page and the first 3 signatures of the test block. What I know so far about it is: -It’s a Luther Bible -The binding is panel stamped with portraits of what I think are Luther and another person […]
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This binding has had a rough life. The leather was originally white, as you can see in this corner that used to be protected by a metal corner boss.