Paper Conservation Workshop by AAO-SWOC

Today I had the pleasure of attending a Paper Conservation Workshop put on by the Archives Association of Ontario’s Southwestern Ontario Chapter. The four hour workshop was taught by Mary Gladwin of the County of Oxford Archives and was held at Weldon Library here on campus. Mary was a delightful teacher and showed us how to safely remove staples and smooth out any holes, showed us how to clean paper materials using Skum-X Cleaning Powder (awesome name btw and can be found at Carr McLean), how to repair tears using archival repair tape and Japanese repair tissue, and how to encapsulate paper materials for protection. We were each given 3 original bank notes from the late-19th century to clean and repair to clean and repair and we all had a lot of fun doing it! There was a fellow MLIS student in attendance as were Mary Kosta and Jenn Vickers who are the Archivist and Archival Intern at the Sisters of St. Joseph Archives here in London where I volunteered last summer so it was lovely to catch up with them. At the end we were each given an information booklet and a kit with some supply and material samples which was a lovely surprise!! Here are some pictures from the event:

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Bookbinding Workshop @ FIMS (February 27, 2014)

Here are some photos from the Bookbinding workshop I ran as part of the GRC Presents… workshop series on February 27, 2014. I briefly spoke about the evolution of “the book” from cuneiform tablets to papyrus scrolls to the codex to e-books and discussed the development of parchment and paper and I showed many different examples of historical binding structures and had some physical examples from the GRC’s rare books collection to pass around. I showed pictures of my trip to Montefiascone, Italy last summer where I took an Early Gothic Bookbinding course and showed how complex it is to make a book by hand. We then ended with a practical component and I showed the class how to sew simple 3-hole stitch pamphlets and allowed them to use traditional bookbinding tools such as bonefolders, awls, and slitting knives, which everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy!! I had such a great time teaching this workshop and for spreading awareness of the art of bookbinding to a very enthusiastic audience! I am teaching an encore workshop on March 27 for people who were not able to sign up for the first one and am excited for that!!

Hand-Sewn Pamphlets

A little preview of the bookbinding workshop I am running at UWO next Thursday. A small 3-hole pamphlet with pockets, a larger 5-hole pamphlet, and a multi-section pamphlet with exposed sewing. Sorry for the poor quality (was taken with my cell phone at night). Used nice Japanese linen paper but you can’t really tell here.