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.
The first time I learned about phase boxes, I was on a tour of The Leeds Library. It was conducted by their bookbinder, Brian Cole, who ventured up from the depths of the library basement to show us around.
Too often, repairs to comic books are done by people with good intentions without a better understanding or training in the field of conservation. Okay, there are cases of bad intentions and no training, as well.
Old books tell lots of stories and often have sentimental value. They also offer a challenge for conservators. But what about comics? They are no exception.
One of my most exciting projects was an 18th-century book I worked on for one of my restoration course final exams. The book was brought to me by a friend, and its story started to unveil as the months went by.
Super thin paper made by Hidaka Washi Ltd. is used by museums and other institutions all over the world for conservation and restoration projects. But the technology of production dates back a thousand years.
I have a copy of The Fair Penitent by Nicholas Rowe, published in 1776. I found it in a rare bookstore. It has no boards, barely any spine left, and the frontispiece has been cut out.
This project is a bit out of our general scope. However, subject of cloth restoration and conservation in general and matters of working with silk in particular may be of interest to some of bookbinders.
This wonderful and inspiring video, featuring Eliza Gilligan, a book conservator at the University of Virginia, is reach with an old book’s details and close-ups. A real pleasure to watch. As a bonus: some insights into how a conservator works and thinks.
Here is a short video of a painstaking process of page restoration of a book first made in 1725. The video is posted by the Municipal Archive of Loulé (that’s a city and municipality in Faro District, Portugal).
Sixteen members of the restoration and conservation team of the National Library of Spain are in charge of millions of documents held in the collection. Watch them performing some of theirs tasks in that short video.
Sherif Afifi is a book and paper conservator at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt. He has a wonderful collection of videos dedicated to bookbinding, book conservation and care for the other paper-related materials.
Until the 2nd of April an amazing exhibition is open in Bucharest, Romania. Anatomia Restaurării (The Anatomy of Restoration) is dedicated to 25 years of conservation and restoration conducted at the the Muzeul Naţional de Artă al României (National Museum of Art of Romania).
This 17th century map was found in a chimney in Scotland. Map was so deteriorated, it seemed almost impossible to be restored. However, specialists from the National Library of Scotland have succeeded in recovering everything that was salvageable for this historical object.
Smithsonian Institution Archives has just published a Vine showing the use of special enclosure for a historic photograph. That’s the first video posted on their channel and I hope we’ll get many more interesting illustrations for the smart ideas used in that institution. To find the full story (and diagrams) of the photo and specially tailored portfolio, you can visit their official blog.
