I love using jigs whenever possible, especially when it comes to measuring things for housings. So please meet the “Box-O-Matic” measuring jig, which I created from the bottom half of a 20 x 16 archival box and colored pencils. I invented the Box-O-Matic jig to quickly identify which oversized books could be immediately rehoused in […]
I had the pleasure and privilege of attending Karen Hanmer‘s “Medieval on the Go: The Girdle Book” class during the 2015 Focus on Book Arts Conference. During the class, I created this anatomically correct model of a Medieval girdle book. Notable features of this model include: the textblock is sewn with packed sewing over raised […]
Do you have a problem?
Is that problem finding a housing (i.e. a box, folder, envelope, bag, etc) for something in your collection?
Do you not want to spend hours pouring through four different vendor catalogs, trying to find the box that fits your item the best?
Well, you’re in luck because I have the solution to your housing problem!
This is a tool that can quickly generate the minimum level of structured description and condition information needed for creating pre-treatment documentation. From this “skeleton” treatment proposal, additional information can be added manually, or it can be left as-is with only a little grammatical clean-up required to make it look like a human wrote it.
Beginning in 2019, I began a project to identify and document trade bindings (ca. 18th-19th century), bindings with some mark of the binder (tickets, signatures, or stamps), and other bindings of significant aesthetic interest that are currently in the circulating collection of ASU Library. To accomplish this I spent many hours walking the stacks of […]
Got back on the bench for the first time in a long while. This tape residue on a beautiful handtooled binding just demanded to be picked at… On further inspection, I saw that it had a binder’s signature: “Bound by Ramage”. John Ramage was a British born binder who worked in France after his apprenticeship […]
During my hunt for more signed bindings in Fletcher Library, I came across these attractive publishers bindings. Both have a distinctive monogram on their front covers: an overlapping double “D”, which identifies them as the work of the Decorative Designers firm.
Three different approaches to general collections conservation treatment (from L-R): Reusing the original boards and spine, with the spine and boards rejoined together using new bookcloth A brand new case made with all new decorative elements, and no reuse of any materials from the original case, with some artistic liberties taken compared to the original […]
It’s not everyday that I get a general collections book that’s older than the U.S.A. come across my desk. This one was in a tacky modern binding, both ugly and completely unsympathetic to the original binding structure it probably once had. When I opened it up, though, I quickly realized this was not in the […]
Since I started working at ASU Library in 2013, I have had many opportunities to give planned and impromptu tours of the conservation lab. I maintain a “teaching collection” of bookbinding and conservation demonstration materials, which come in handy when a tour group drops in unexpectedly. ASU Library produced videos I’ve also featured in a […]