Archive for the ‘Book Arts’ Category
March 19, 2008
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
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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
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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! 
Tags:bonefolders, Book Arts, bookarts, bookbinding, books, class, classes, historical, jim croft, old ways, oldways, tools, wooden boards, workshops
Posted in Book Arts, Classes/Workshops | Leave a Comment »
January 27, 2008

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 .
Tags:adobe acrobat, google, google book search, google books, pdf, Tutorial
Posted in Book Arts, Tutorial | 1 Comment »
November 27, 2007

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!
Tags:book, Book Arts, book binders, book binding, book of origins, bookbinders, bookbinding, books, ficciones, fine binders, fine binding, finebinding, hanmer, karen hanmer, online exhibit
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November 17, 2007
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.
Tags:antarctic, blogs, future of the book, gaga, gary frost, library preservation, museums, websites
Posted in Book Arts, Conservation Resources, Libraries, Preservation | Leave a Comment »