Giant squids and the alphabet

Here are two videos of amazing pop-up books!  The first video shows how a “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” pop-up book was engineered. The second shows an incredible new pop-up book called ABC3D (available from Amazon for only $12!!)  – this same video was posted a while back, but since I just bought it I thought it’d be good to show it again.  😀

Abc3D – video powered by Metacafe

Amazing Pop-Up Book!

Check out this video of a really awesome pop-up alphabet book by Marion Bataille.  

Eat this book!

Spring is upon us, and once again it’s time for the EDIBLE BOOK FESTIVAL! The festival will take place on March 29th, from 2-4pm at the Kilgarlin Center.  All entries need to be submitted by 1:45pm that day.  Prizes will be awarded in the following categories:

• Best in show
• Wittiest
• Tastiest
• Best Book Structure
• Least Appetizing 

More information can be had from the Edible Book Festival website.  Bon appétit!

Old Ways Bookmaking and Tool Workshops by Jim Croft

If you’re interested in learning how to make a historical wooden-board model from start to finish, then you can’t go wrong with Jim Croft’s intensive Old Ways class being held this summer.  The tool intensive workshop runs from June 24 – June 25, and the bookmaking workshop goes from June 26-July 11.  Here’s a list, taken from his website, of some of the things he’ll teach in the bookmaking class:

Toolmaking and sharpening: Two Days Elk & deer bone folders Locally gathered & cured wood awls Tool sharpening & maintenance Fiber from stem to thread: Two Days Learn to process local, imported, sorted, sordid, and recycled hemp & flax Also work with material taken from seed to thread and from fiber to rag or at least stalk to thread Linen fire hose processing Making lye from ash Wood-fired lye cooking, retting, braking & scutching, Hackling, spinning, plying & natural bleaching Hand-cutting fiber

Papermaking: Three Days Using hemp, flax, and cotton pulps Comparisons and contrasts of the beater Meeting the water-powered stamp mill Gelatin tub sizing and wet gelatin pressing Loft drying in spurs Hand burnishing Bookmaking with Wooden Boards and Clasps: Five Days Find, harvest, and cure your local woods and learn quarter splitting from the block Sawing, hewing, and shaping by hand or take the easier route board shaping by machine Sawn and planed boards will be cut to length and shaped with rasp, file, plane, hand drill, knife, etc. Learn to tell if a piece of wood would or would not co-operate with your book Plus, learn to form and fit the formerly commonplace, but now often neglected or even negated need for brass clasps

 Third-year students, Elizabeth Bittner and Brenna Campbell, took the class last summer.  Jim Croft visited us here in Austin last January for an amazing tool-making workshop.  Nothing compares to a bonefolder you’ve made yourself, to fit YOUR hand!  

Tutorial: Bookbinding with Google Books

Photo by Flickr User jimbarter

NOTE: Previously, I stated that you could only do Google Bookbinding with Adobe Acrobat Professional.  I have since realized that this is a fallacy – you can do most of the tutorial with just the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.  But, by using Acrobat Reader, you will NOT be able to delete or otherwise modify pages in your Google Book. So, due to popular demand, I have written up a tutorial about how to print out Google Books for bookbinding purposes. I like to call it Google Bookbinding.  For one thing, there are many old and out of print books about bookbinding available on Google Book Search. Printing them out in this way saves paper and allows for a more authentic reading experience.For this tutorial, you will need either Adobe Acrobat Reader 8 OR Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional. Current iSchool students can find it in the IT Lab, as well as the Resource Room and labs in the Kilgarlin center.

So, without further ado, click here to download the Google Bookbinding Tutorial .

Books in Art… (in French)

From Chela, comes this link to a French-language gallery of the portrayal of books in art.

Book of Origins

This summer, I was fortunate enough to see the “Book of Origins” fine-binding exhibit, curated by Karen Hanmer, when it was at the Cincinnati Public Library. From Syracuse University’s Library website:

The 2007 traveling exhibition features twenty contemporary fine bindings by ten American binders. The group includes established masters as well as gifted emerging artists. Two works are presented by each binder: their binding in response to the set Book of Origins text, and an additional example of their work.

My favorite binding was Karen Hanmer’s take on Jorge Luis Borge’s Ficciones.

Check out the exhibit here!

Know your blogs…

These are blogs that have some connection/relationship to conservation, preservation, libraries or other book-related things. If you know a blog that should be added to this list, please leave a comment! 🙂

Kevin Driedger’s Library Preservation Blog

The GAGA (Gray Areas to Green Areas) blog

Gary Frost’s Future of the Book.com

if:book, part of the Institute for the Future of the Book

Antarctic Conservation Blog [And you think it’s cold in the lab! At least we don’t have to worry about our paste freezing.]

Museum Blogs – a collection of several different blogs that is also searchable.

From Portrait to Landscape, all in one book!

Intriguing, yet sold out! A book that goes from portrait to landscape format. Great for those indecisive moments.

Cooked book!

From Da Zeen, Well Done: a food company annual report that has to be cooked first