Conserving Rare Books at King's College, Cambridge

An introduction to common rare book conservation issues faced by conservators and librarians.
Conservation work undertaken at the Cambridge Colleges' Conservation Consortium
Production & Editing: King's College librarians & volunteers
Photo and video copyright owners: Cambridge Colleges' Conservation Consortium and King's College
Narration: Gareth Burgess
June 2018

[@none8680]

This is the kind of job that the less you get noticed, the better you've done your job. Thanks for your great effort.

[@davidrgee]

Precisely the opposite, when doing museum grade restoration the original from the repaired should be immediatly visible... the other two rules are rerversability and inocuity... Only ignorant book collectors try to make the repairs invisible

[@none8680]

@@davidrgee That's very interesting. How do you know that? Have worked as a restorer/preserver of books?

[@murraykriner9425]

A very worthy effort made for the preservation of these heralded works that deserve our reverence. I am thankful that bookbinding is yet taught in many places throughout the globe. My thanks for saving what few regard as mere antiques and collectables.

[@inkland2003]

thanks for your great conservation work. the books and documents are treasures for us all.

[@lkmayhew9390]

Nicely done. Such an interesting process. Thanks for sharing.

[@paulpaxtop1580]

I wonder what the micr-crystalline wax was. The leather in a good few of those books needed dressing. Lack of dressing is the biggest problem for 18th and especially 19th century books. There seems to be no consensus about what to treat book leathers with. Organisations like the National Trust have thousands of deteriorating books, dusting does nothing to save the leather from drying out. Book leather must be dressed or hinges will fail, leather will rot, leather will become discoloured, labels will crack and peel off. There are plenty of dressing products available, none seem to be used, judging by the state of books I have seen in public collections it is almost too late to save many fine leather bindings, it is fast becoming a tragic scandal as no one seems to be getting to grips with the problem, I have books in my collection which have lasted perfectly for 40yrs with the most basic aniline calf cream dressing ... there are much better products around today, they should be being used.

[@davidboettcher1900]

At a guess the microcrystalline wax might be Renaissance Wax (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Wax) which is used by many conservators, although I am not sure that it would feed dry leather; it seemed to be used more as a surface coatings for some of the paper repairs.

[@paulpaxtop1580]

Hi David. Many thanks for this suggestion. For years I used Hewits leather restorer, a liquid, which did the job well but as a liquid I had to be careful with thin leather especially some Scivers. I know of but have never used British Museum Dressing with beeswax, I have a vague idea that it had a problem with stickiness but that is probably no longer the case, it’s expensive at £67.80 a half litre. I discovered SC6000 about 10 years ago, reasonably priced, like a soft polish easy to apply after testing on the leather, although the instructions discourage use on old leather I have had no problems at all on all kinds of old leather bindings, not being liquid it can be used in many restoration situations. If I were a ‘power that be’ I would unhesitatingly use it to save old bindings.

[@JanetteHeffernan]

Master Bookbinder Peter Goodwin 64 years in The Trade used boot polish on covers and brass polish on the metal bindings when they were off the book but all leather will fail eventually and the answer in the old days was to rebind which is what Goodwin did. Today regretfully journeymen bookbinders are obsolete and our books are falling to pieces thanks to acid paper and animal glue which is the worst destroyer of books going.

[@mozdickson]

I enjoy this thread. I have a collection of vintage leather motorcycle jackets, and use Mink Oil --- sparing amounts, gently applied. Leather is hide.

[@g-r-a-e-m-e-]

Please make more videos. 🙂

[@hippomanjp]

最近八十年前に作られた新品のままの帳簿を数冊入手したが、やはり革の部分が急速に乾燥劣化して収拾のつかない情況。どうしてよいか分からず困り果てている。
修復技術者の技と労苦にはまったく頭が下がります。

[@user-qm2qf2ge8b]

Это просто великолепно...

[@TheBlackbirdii]

What does putas mean ?