Welcome to Haverford College - Treat This, Please.

This summer I am a Conservation Intern at Haverford College. I hit the ground running a few weeks ago and have loved the fast environment. I was worried I wouldn't be able to apply my speedy ways to conservation, but I was wrong. While mending can be slow at times, I find the entire process of treatment exciting and oddly spunky. Never know what attitude a book will throw at me. Studying the objects, planning treatments and being in complete control of execution has been rock solid. Below, I share with you my first project here at the Magill Library in hot and humid Haverford, PA.

Love and Truth, by Luke Howard, a rare Quaker book from Special Collections needed a complete conservation treatment which included washing, de-acidifying, re-sizing, paper mending, re-sewing, rounding, and re-casing. Below are some photos from the epic process.

WASHING

PAPER MENDING - BEFORE AND AFTER

SEWING

COVERS - BEFORE AND AFTER

ENCLOSURE FEATURING COMPARTMENT FOR ORIGINAL COVERS

I'm proud.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde - An Adventure of Paper Repair with a Limp Leather Finish

I found a tiny leather copy of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in a used bookstore here in Providence. Gross and rusty green I thought this would look great in a different leather cover.

The paper inside, burned from the acid of the leather, needed a lot of repair. Because the few fragile sections were completely uneven, my first task was to take everything apart. Thread was cut, pages (folios) were separated. The rips and tears through the creases of the folios would need mending and new strength if I was to sew through them again.

I toned some Kizukishi (japanese tissue paper) to match the darkened paper and prepared some wheat paste. The tiny strips of tissue were applied carefully with tweezers onto the missing or cracking pieces of the pages. Everything sat for about twenty minutes or so under weight to ensure proper adhering.

After the paper had been repaired I found thread that matched the original thread used and sewed the sections back together. The story was ready for a limp leather case. If you scroll below you can read about the Limp Leather process.

While the book looked snug and pretty in it's new leather case, strong and true, it lacked something. A title. A gold title.

Hope you've enjoyed!