Sometimes a book will come across the bench that is both exciting and a little bit terrifying. In early February, this kind of book made its way to me. At the end of 2024, Special Collections acquired a fantastic 1542 Il Dicameron Di Boccaccio rebound by Francis Bedford sometime in the 1800s. This book is slated to have a great life in the Libraries, but it needed just a bit of care before it could be used in teaching and research.
Over this blog post and the next, we are going to dive into the conservation of Special Collection materials and follow this Decameron from the lab to a life of education!
Getting Started
The first thing we do before starting any treatment is filling out a condition report, a comprehensive document detailing the current state of the item. It includes notes of any wear, damage, or areas of concern, as well as photos. The Decameron had a few areas of concern: the front board was completely detached, the spine was lifting at the head and tail, the interior joint of the back board was showing signs of wear and there were areas that needed cleaning.
As well as completing a condition report, we usually have a check-in meeting with the Special Collections (SPCO) unit this item falls under – in this case, our former Rare Books librarian and Associate Dean of Special Collections, Joshua Youngblood. In this meeting, we chatted through what we know about the cause of the damage, what SPCO is looking for as far as extent of the repair, and initial observations from the conservation perspective.
We settled on a course of action that all involved felt comfortable with and that would fit the deadline of early March to allow the Decameron to be ready for teaching. It was decided that reattaching the front board and lightly cleaning the areas that needed attention would be the best course of action. My first steps after the meeting were to reach out to fellow conservation professionals to double check my proposed plan and see if they had any insight or tips!
Consultation
As a small lab, we don’t have as many people to bounce ideas off of in house. Luckily, the conservation field and book community are incredibly kind and willing to offer up their time and expertise. For this book, I reached out to Peter Geraty of Praxis Bindery. Peter has over 45 years of experience in bookbinding and is head of the Integrated Bookbinding program at the American Academy of Bookbinding (which has amazing classes, including ones on conservation!). During our conversation, Peter kindly gave me some suggestions on my proposed treatment, concerns to look out for, and tips on how to make sure the result of the repair was as non-intrusive as possible without distracting too much from the binding.
Preparing Materials and Cleaning
For this treatment, I went a little out of order, and decided to prep all of the materials I would need to complete the repair. Typically, I prepare materials as I go, and bounce between tasks. For this treatment, it felt safer to have all of my materials ready to go so I would focus just on the task at hand. The needed materials included many pieces of Mylar cut into various shapes and sizes, Japanese tissue sized with methylcellulose, Japanese tissue toned to match the book, and tackets made from linen thread. Below is a post-repair photo of the leftover toned tissue, along with the usual tissue toning setup.
My final step before getting into the nitty-gritty of the treatment was to dry clean the book. In the examination of the book, I noted that there was a waxy substance on the front cover, near some of the gold tooling, and an odd sticky substance on the fly leaf not too dissimilar to sticker residue that has been dirtied. Using a polyurethane sponge (aka a makeup sponge), I gently removed surface dirt from the book, paying special attention to the areas I would be focusing on repairing, and making sure pigment from the leather or marbled endsheets was not removed. Using an eraser, I was able to remove the mystery sticky substance, though a bit of discoloration was left behind. Finally, using my handy microspatula, I was able to remove a large portion of the waxy substance that had made its home on the gold tooling design on the cover, without causing any damage to the tooling itself.
Next month, we will dive into the treatments, take a brief break for the weather, and do some final touches before sending the Decameron back into the hands of students and researchers!