Fixin’ books in the Wild West
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 [...]
I often curse when I have to reverse patch up jobs done on books with poor materials and inept hands, so it’s somewhat comforting to hear that this happens on a much larger scale as well.
The Ambrosiana Library of Milan has announced that they are going to dismantle the Codex Atlanticus, a huge collection of [...]
Following up on a previous post, James Brubaker of Great Falls was sentenced yesterday to 2 1/2 years in prison. One good thing that came out of this was the discovery of a blog entirely about book theft and book-related crimes (even if the author does diverge every now and then) called Upward Departure. The [...]
All eyes have been pointed towards China in the recent weeks because of the Olympics; mine are no exception. A recent article in the China Daily caught my eye, and it’s worth passing your way. A devoted group of conservation professionals have dedicated themselves over the last 18 years to restoring numerous ancient [...]
Another one! Something about the summer that brings out book thieves.
So you work at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC, and one day a swingin’ 50-something dilettante bedecked in expensive clothes bought by mommy drops by to ask you the value of his “friend’s” tome….which turns out to be a hot First Folio [...]
Nothing enrages me more than sophisticated biblioklepts who destroy public property for their own gain. The infamous Stephen Blumberg first springs to mind, with his elaborate and large-scale book filching career that is detailed in Nicholas Basbanes’ book, A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books (there’s also a good [...]
Our local weekly just published a nice article on local luthier, George Weisel. I’ve been scouring the CoOL and AIC databases for Montanan conservators of various kinds and have come up short, so it was nice to see that Missoula is home to not just one but three talented strnged instrument restorers, John Joyner [...]
The flooding in the Midwest and its effect on the libraries there have had general destruction on my mind. Not too long ago, I read My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk (recommend!) and there was a passage there that I copied down to put my role in the conservation world into perspective. [...]
Who isn’t talking about digitization and the projected demise of the word on paper? My reading load and podcast schedule has been full of it lately, with some surprising arguments for paper as technology. On the Media recently had a whole program dedicated to the book, and one of the featured speakers was [...]
Looks like digitization projects in Timbuktu have made the New York Times again. Kevin over at Library Preservation had a post last year regarding efforts by various African governments to digitize the sea of rare books floating around the once and future intellectual hub of the African continent. This article focuses on the [...]
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