Ancient book repair techniques

Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc.Patr.41, fol. 69r. Detail.

Have you seen the medieval book repair posts over at Colossal?  There are also some pretty great doodles and marginalia from days of old.   They were pretty creative working around holes and worn spots, even including what looks like crochet and embroidery.  I'm not sure how useful those repair techniques would work in the modern world in a public library setting.  What would the patrons think?

Library Book Mending Resources

Did you know about these resources for book mending?  This is but a small collection of the massive amounts of information and tutorials you can find online:

Association for Library Collections & Technical Services webinar
This is a FREE webinar originally presented on 9/14/11 by Peter D. Verheyen and Marianne Hanley.

"Participants will become familiar with several types of basic repairs for bound circulating collections materials in school, public, and academic libraries. Tip-ins and basic page repairs, hinge tightening, and a variety of spine repairs are covered. Techniques are illustrated and demonstrated with text, images, and video. Links to other resources are provided. Repairs and conservation treatments on rare and special collections materials are NOT discussed."

Simple Techniques for the Maintenance and Repair of Books This is an online manual from Gaylord called Bookcraft, which they've published since 1924.  This version is copyrighted 1996.  In it they cover typical repairs of both the textblock and covers, and talk about cleaning and maintenance.

Tippacanoe County Public Library Book Care and Repair
TCPL has collected a good list of a variety of internet resources on book repairs. They have separated out the list into Specific Situations & Repairs, General Book Care, and Equipment and Supplies.  They also recommend the Syracuse University Library's youtube channel, which is the next link in this list.

Syracuse University Library Preservation's youtube channel 
There are video tutorials about repairs, as well as about books in general and some longer lectures.

Demco Madison's youtube channel
This is a playlist that includes 12 videos from Demco that details simple repairs such as repairing damaged pages, hinges, covers and spines.


Conservation Book Repair: A training manual by Artemis BonaDea
A book repair manual published by Alaska State Library which is downloadable as a whole or chapter by chapter for free.  It is a culmination of presentation methods and handouts developed in workshops given by Artemis BonaDea.

Simple Book Repair Manual
A completely web-based book about mending and repair, the table of contents is a pull-down menu which takes you to each chapter topic.  There is no download time and it's completely free.

"The web version of the Simple Book Repair Manual was created by members of Preservation Services, Dartmouth College Library. "

Do you have any favorite online book repair resources?  Let us know in the comments below.