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Structures for Book Conservation

SLIS 021:259.001, Wednesday 5:30-8:30 General Class Location: Conservation Lab, Main Library Schedule of Session Topics and Tutorials Instructors: Gary Frost, Joyce Miller, Larry Raid 16 sessions, 4 class projects, 1 independent project and presentation, (no exam)

Careful observation of the performance of historical structures and materials has provided an important resource for the fields of book conservation and library preservation. Historical bindings provide conservation binders with inspiration and exemplars of successful and deficient work.

This course will present principles and practice of book conservation with a focus on prototypes for conservation rebinding. Studio projects will be placed into context with discussions and demonstrations featuring the University of Iowa Libraries Bookbinding Model Collection. The course will include book craft projects to develop knowledge of book structures. The course will compare book production trades, conservation practice and book arts.

In addition to instruction in book conservation methods, students will also develop career skills through readings and class discussion. Relevant career agendas include those of library preservation and book conservation, artistic expression in book format and academic interests in book studies.

Hopefully this class will also provide you with another experience. This is the craft experience, once routine but now rare, of the hands prompting the mind. The book is a device for comprehension because codex reading is a manual activity.

Bibliography: SLIS “Structures for Book Conservation”

(Most of these publications are in the Conservation Lab. These are not Library copies. They may be borrowed, but must be returned at the next class. Check out is via note card box.)

Advent of the Codex Gamble, Harry Y., Books and Readers in the Early Church; A History of Early Christian Texts, Yale University Press, 1995. Grierson, Roderick, ed., African Zion, The Sacred Art of Ethiopia, Yale University Press, 1993. Mack, Burton L., The Lost Gospel, The Book of Q & Christian Origins, Harper, 1993. Pagels, Elaine, The Gnostic Gospels, Vintage Books, 1979. Patterson, Stephan J.and Robinson, James M., The Fifth Gospel, The Gospel of Thomas Comes of Age, Trinity Press International, 1998. Powell, Roger and Waters, Peter, "Technical Description of the Binding", The Stonyhurst Gospel of St. John, The Roxburgh Club, Oxford, 1969. Roberts, Colin H. and Skeat, T.C., The Birth of the Codex, Oxford University Press, 1983. Rubenstein, Richard, Aristotle's Children; How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages, Harcourt, 2003. Saenger, Paul, Space Between Words, The Origins of Silent Reading, Stanford University Press, 1997. Schmandt-Besserat, Denise, How Writing Came About, University of Texas Press, 1996. Sider, David, The Library of the Villa Dei Papiri at Herculaneum,Getty Publications, 2005. Snyder, Gregory, Teachers and Texts in the Ancient World, Routledge, 2000. Stark, Rodney, The Rise of Christianity, HarperCollins, 1997. Turner, Eric G., The Topology of the Early Codex, University of Pennsylvannia, 1977.

Early Hand Bookbinding de Bray, Dirk, A Short Instruction in the Binding of Books, (a facsimile of the 1658 mss) Nico Isreal, Amsterdam, 1977. Middleton, Bernard, A History of English Craft Bookbinding Technique, 2nd edition, Holland Press, London, 1978. Pollard, Graham, "Changes in the Styles of Bookbinding, 1550-1840", The Library, 5th series, XI/2, June, 1956. (E) Spawn, Willman, Bookbinding in America 1680-1910, Bryn Mawr College Library, Bryn Mawr, PA, 1983. Szirmai, J. A., The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding, Ashgate, 1999.

Industrial Book Production Allen, Sue and Gullans, Charles, Decorated Cloth in American Publishers' Bindings, 1840-1910, University of California, Los Angeles, 1994. Cloonan, Michele, Early Bindings in Paper, G.K.Hall, 1991. Comparato, Frank E., Books for the Millions, Stackpole Co.,1971. Darley, Lionel, Bookbinding Then and Now, Faber & Faber, London, 1959. DeMerritt, John and Riley, Dominic, "Factory Maneuvers: Trade Bindings & Labour in London, 1778 - 1850", The Ampersand, 15/1, winter, 1996. Johns, Adrian, The Nature of the Book, Print and Knowledge in the Making, University of Chicago Press, 1998. Lehmann-Haupt, Hellmut, The Book in America, R.R.Bowker, 1952. Sadleir, Michael, Evolution of Publishers' Binding Styles, 1770-1900, Garland, 1990. Tschichold, Jan, The Form of the Book, Hartley & Marks, 1991.

Book Conservation Cains, Anthony, "Roger Powell and His Early Irish Manuscripts in Dublin", Conservation and Preservation in Small Libraries, Parker Library, Cambridge, UK, 1994. (E) Clarkson, Christopher, "The Conservation of Early Books in Codex Form: A Personal Approach: Part I", The Paper Conservator, 3 (1978), pp, 33-55. Clarkson, Christopher, Limp Vellum Bindings and Its Potential as a Conservation Type Structure for the Rebinding of Early Printed Books: A Break with Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Rebinding Attitudes and Practices, Red Gull Press, Herts, UK, 1982. Cockerell, Douglas, Bookbinding, and the Care of Books, 5th ed., Pentalic Corp., 1978.

Book and Library Preservation Baker, Nicholson, "Deadline", New Yorker, July, 2000, "Discards", New Yorker, 1994. Baker, Nicholson, Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, published by Random House in New York, 2001. Banks, Paul and Pilette, Roberta, Preservation: Issues and Planning, American Library Association, 2000. McCrady,Ellen,"Originals and Copies" subheading in "Preservation Issues at ALA Chicago", Abbey Newsletter, August 1990, 14(5), p. 77-78. McCorison, Marcus A., "Statement on Conservation", Commission on Preservation and Access, October, 1989, reprinted in Abbey Newsletter, Aug, 1990, 14(5), p.84. Schnare, Robert, Bibliography of Preservation Literature 1983-1996, Scarecrow Press, 2001. Tanselle, G. Thomas, "Libraries, Museums and Reading", 6th Sol. M. Malkin Lecture in Bibliography, Columbia University, New York, 1991, 32p. Tanselle, G. Thomas, "Reproductions and Scholarship", Studies in Bibliography, 42 (1989), 25-54. Tanselle, Thomas, "Statement on the Significance of Primary Records", Modern Language Association of America, Profession, 1995.

History and Future of the Book Conway, Paul, "Preservation in the Digital World", Commisssion on Preservation and Access, 1996. Crawford, Walt and Gorman, Michael, Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness & Reality, American Library Association, 1995. Crawford, Walt, Being Analog, Creating Tomorrow's Libraries, ALA, 1999. Epstein, Jason, Book Business, Publishing Past Present and Future, WW Norton, 2001. Febvre, Lucien and Martin, Henri-Jean, The Coming of the Book, Verso, 1976. Johns, Adrian, "The past, present and future of the scientific book", Books and the Sciences in History, Cambridge University press, 2000. Martin, Henri-Jean, The History and Power of Writing, University of Chicago Press, 1988.

Haptics and Habitats of Reading Birkerts, Sven, The Gutenberg Elegies, The fate of Reading in an Electronic Age, Fawcett Columbine, New York, 1994. Bolter, Jay David, Writing Space, The computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991, completely rewritten 2002. Brown, John Seely and Duguid, Paul, The Social Life of Information, Harvard Business School press, 2000. Calvin, William, A Brief History of the Mind, Oxford University Press, 2004. Cavallo, Guglielimo, and Chartier, Roger, eds. A History of Reading, University of Massachusetts Press, 1999. Chartier, Roger, The Order of Books, Stanford University Press, 1994. Derrida, Jacques, Paper Machine, Stanford University Press, 2005. Gardiner, W. Lambert, Media, Past, Present and Future, Academica Press, 2006. Harper, Richard and Sellen, Abigail, The Myth of the Paperless Office,MIT Press, 2002. Havelock, Eric, "The oral-literate equation: a formula for the modern mind", in Literacy and Orality, Cambridge University Press, 1991. Hayles, N. Katherine, How We Became Posthuman, University of Chicago Press, 1999. Hayles, N Katherine, Writing Machines, MIT Press, 2002. Jager, Eric, The Book of the Heart, University of Chicago Press, 2000, isbn 0-226-39117-5. Johns, Adrian, "The physiology of reading" in Books and the Sciences in History, Cambridge University Press, 2000. Lanham, Richard A. , The Electronic Word, University of Chicago, 1993. Levinson, Paul, digital mcluhan, Routledge, 1999. Levinson, Paul, the soft edge, a natural history and future of the information revolution Routledge, 1997. Mithen, Steven, The Prehistory of the Mind, Thames & Hudson, 1996. O'Donnell, James J., Avatars of the Word, Harvard University Press, 1998. Olson, David R., Torrance, Nancy, Literacy and Orality, Cambridge University Press, 1991. (with essays by Eric Havelock, Ivan Illich, R.Narasimhan and Paul Saenger) Ong, Walter, Orality & Literacy , (1982) Routledge, 2000. Postman, Neil, Building a Bridge to the 18th Century, Vintage Books, 1999. Stock, Brian, Augustine the Reader, Harvard University Press, 1996. Stock, Brian, The Implications of Literacy, Princeton University Press, 1983.

as of 07/2006/glf

Optional Session Readings

Pioneers of Book Conservation brief history

Haptic Evaluation of Books an essay

Advent of Case Construction Binding in the U.S. an essay

Choosing Book Arts a talk

Story of the CMR essay on a book repair method

Taxonomy of Book Bindings a proposed classification system

Future of the Codex Book essay on paper books in context of screen reading

Schedule of Session Topics and Tutorials

1. 8/23 Introduction to course concepts and activities. Introduction to book anatomy and book conservation practice. Mending and sheet work for book conservation. Begin CMR collection maintenance repair (project 1.).

2. 8/30 Materials for book conservation. Shared requirements for both modern and heritage materials. (continue CMR project 1.) Cover making, casing in, label.

3. 9/6 Prototypes for book conservation. Historical case construction, library binding. Ethiopian binding with Mahdar exercise (project 2).

4. 9/13 (Class divides) Lessons of historical binding, Nauvoo Journal (project 3.). (Joyce Miller Instructor). Field recording of book structures. (Gary Frost, Instructor).

5. 9/20 (Class divides) Lessons of historical binding, Nauvoo Journal (project 3.). (Joyce Miller, Instructor). Field recording of book structures. (Gary Frost, Instructor).

6. 9/27 (no class) (optional field trip)

7. 10/4 Structures for book conservation, laced vs. cased vs. laced case. Conservation structures sampler, (project 4.).

8. 10/11 (class divides) (continue conservation structures sampler, (project 4.) Historical Printing Tutorial. (Mossman Business Center, Larry Raid Instructor).

9. 10/18 (class divides) (continue conservation structures sampler, (project 4.) Historical Printing Tutorial. (Mossman Business Center, Larry Raid Instructor).

10. 10/25 Comparison of book production trades, conservation practice and book arts. (finish conservation structures sampler, project 4.).

11. 11/1 Literature and media of book conservation. Case histories, aesthetics of book conservation. Discuss options for student project.

12. 11/8 (5:30 – 7:00 session attendance required) Independent projects work.

13. 11/15 (5:30 – 7:00 session attendance required) Independent projects work.

14. 11/22 (no class session) (Thanksgiving vacation)

15. 11/30 Independent project presentations

16. 12/6 Independent project presentations

Contact: gary-frost@uiowa.edu

08.03.06/glf