What do preservation librarians do? Book repair vs book conservation

A preservation librarian might be involved in both book repair and book conservation. The goal of book repair is to extend the useful life of a book. The primary purpose of book repair is to make the text usable--to make it readable--for a little while longer. The goal of conservation is to maintain the unique qualities of an important, or possibly irreplaceable, artifact. Readability of the text is only part of the value of such an item. Simply repairing a page or rebinding the pages into a new cover would destroy its value.

In this post, we will look at book repair. Book conservation will be the topic of the next series of posts.

So, how does a preservation librarian decide which books to repair, which to discard/replace with new and which to send out for repair?

The first, and most obvious, consideration is cost. If it costs more in labor and materials to repair it than it would to replace it, most of the time it's not worth repairing it. An exception to this rule might be if a patron is waiting for the book and replacing would take too long. A second consideration is the condition of the book. Will the repair consist of something simple like repairing torn pages? Something more complex like repairing a binding? If so, what sort of binding, sewn or glued? Are the pages brittle or the leather binding rotten? If the answer to the last question is yes--if the pages are brittle or the binding is rotten--this book is probably not a candidate for a simple, in house book repair. It may need replacement, or if it is valuable, proper conservation. But torn pages can be repaired in house, and in many cases, so can damaged binding.

So what is involved in book repair? Before we begin, some guidelines: Do not cause additional damage with your repair. In other words, first of all, don't use tape, acidified products, rubber glue etc. A good rule of thumb with the products you choose for repair is this: if the repair can't be undone without causing damage, it probably isn't a good repair. Second, don't attempt repairs you are not skilled enough to manage.

Here are some examples of repairs that can be done in house:

1) Cleaning of the pages or cover--this means removing dirt, dust, grease, insects in a way that does not remove paper or leather.

2) Fixing tears in pages--resecuring two edges of paper together again, usually with Japanese paper and starch paste (almost never with tape, since tape is not reversible, is acidic and causes paper to tear along the seam where it is placed. The only valid exception to the 'no tape' rule is situations where it is known that a book is not intended to remain in circulation long, for example children's books).

3) Tipping or hinging in a page--resecuring a page that has been torn from the binding--again, often with Japanese paper and a non-acidic adhesive.

4) Hinge repair--repairing a book whose text block has sagged causing the hinges to be loose.

5) Repairing book corners--anything from gluing down frayed fibers to repairing delaminated corners to reinforcing crushed corners.

6) Spine repair--cutting off the original spine, reinforcing it and replacing it on the book.

7) Reattaching a book block to its case--assuming the case is intact, this can be done with the appropriate adhesive.

There are numerous excellent manuals to describe how to perform all these procedures. Some examples are:

BonaDea, Artemis. (1995). Conservation Book Repair: A training manual. Alaska State Library. Available http://library.state.ak.us/hist/conman.html

Preservation Services. (1996). Simple Book Repair Manual. Dartmouth College Library. Available http://www.dartmouth.edu/~preserve/repair/repairindex.htm

Lower Hudson Conference. (1999). Emergency Planning and Recovery Techniques: A Handbook for Libraries, Historical Societies and Archives in the Hudson Valley. Available http://www.lowerhudsonconference.org/empart/Appendix/Book_Repair/book_repair.html