I find connections among books, art, music, libraries, travel, crafts and food.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

A Book a Week 2014: Made, Altered, Repaired. Week 24

Week of 16 June

College Library Rebacking

While doing some archival work on the World Languages Bibles at St. Olaf College, I walked through the regular stacks of Bibles and Religion books. I worked for 2 years in the conservation lab at UW-Madison, learning how to repair books. A lot of what I did every day was rebacking. Rebacking refers to repairing a spine or making a new spine. We always tried to preserve as much of the original as possible, without creating more damage.

It appears most colleges did the same thing, repairing books to allow them to be checked out more. Here are some examples of rebacking (well, there are some that are totally recased).














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