The Vespiary Book Binding & Book Conservation

The blogs have been a hoppin’ lately with book and conservation related goodies.  Here are some gems from a few of my favorites.

MAKE magazine recently posted a fun set of links about an art installation called “Breathing Books.” It appears that the Arduino mechanism that powers the breathing action caused a bit of a stir with pretty much every security agency, and was no end of trouble for the artist.

Kevin Driedger posted some great Collection Care Videos from the British Library.  I had a little trouble with Windows Media Player, but got them to work fine with VLC.

The Antarctic Conservation Blog always has extreme news from the bottom of the earth, but their recent travel in the Antarctic Mobile Conservation Lab has been fascinating. Imagine if your conservation lab was stuffed into a converted refrigerator and then towed across a frozen ocean by a bulldozer.  Yeah, it’s like that.

Graphic Conservation has been getting inundated with questions about how to best preserve beloved newspapers.

And a couple of great articles/op-eds from the Gray Lady.  The first, “How to Publish Without Perishing,” by James Gleick (of Chaos fame), is about how certain perfect technologies (such as books!) are unlikely to become obsolete; and a link to an article about “La Dotta Mano,” a lavish and luxurious book about Michelangelo’s sculptures.  Save your Euros!

And lastly, I’ve just started selling some of my blank journals and sketchbooks over at noteworthy* here in Missoula.  So if you’re looking for a great holiday gift, shop local!