Identifying the origins of a manuscript is a notoriously subjective art, one that requires an impressive visual memory and an exceedingly trained eye that can quickly spot the telltale details which hint at certain artists, periods, and locations.
Part of an extensive collection of manuscripts, unearthed in the Russian city of Novgorod more than five years ago, these childish writings were produced by an old practice of writing on birch bark.
It takes an expert eye to decipher old and damaged manuscripts, but even that is not enough sometimes. Recently, multispectral technology has aided researchers of the Dead Sea Scrolls to read ink invisible to the naked eye and pinpoint previously unknown texts.
In this short, wordless video, the Smith Settle printing and bookbinding shop guides a memoir from a formless text into a book, working in a beautiful symbiosis with the machines that lend a modern elegance to their work.
It’s a common misconception that Amazon has killed the independent bookstore industry. In reality, bookstores which manage to adapt to this new era, and perhaps even those that don’t, are hanging on.
Those living at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century saw library books in a different light than us. For many, library books had the potential to transmit some of the most infectious diseases circulating in society at the time.
In this interview, Professor Gregory Clark, a distinguished scholar of medieval manuscripts, provides an examination and analysis of the recently resurfaced Fauquier Book of Hours and its significance.
The Society of Bookbinders has announced the winners of its SoB International Bookbinding Competition of 2019! As usual, the last stages of the competition took place alongside the conference of the Society of Bookbinders.
If you’re not already a fan, you likely think anime is all about fantastical adventures or about highly idealized life. But a new anime television series turns all of these expectations on their head, offering a wonderful visual journey of bookmaking.
All around the world, invaluable cultural resources are threatened by political conflict, environmental challenges, and instability. In Sri Lanka, grassroots efforts offer two important models of preservation of knowledge, wisdom, and skills.
Bookbinding is no easy craft, and it’s not hard to get discouraged when you don’t see the results you might have expected making your first book. A post at the Rulerless blog offers inspiration that is relatable to anyone who’s had the pleasure of learning a new skill. Read it, and keep on binding!
Washi is often dubbed “the world’s thinnest paper,”. Chinzei’s variety, tengu-joshi washi, is 0.02 millimeters thick and weighs 1.6 grams per square meter. As opposed to standard paper, which is thicker and weighs 70 grams per square meter.
For all that the invention of scotch tape has made life easier, it has also made life much more difficult for those who now have to deal with the consequences of more than 150 years of tape application on paper and works of art.
What is most unexpected about his intricate, captivating, folded-paper sculptures, is that until he finishes them, Matt Shlian doesn’t know exactly how they’re going to turn out.
In our age of abundant visuals, it is easy to look at 18th-century Romantic poet William Blake’s illuminated books without realizing just how revolutionary and ingenious they were.
