Building and Displaying a Teaching Collection
Guest post by R. B. Bartgis
While it's always a joy to visit a rare book collection with students, a private teaching collection can be a perfect compliment to an institutional library, or a way to introduce general audiences to old books if you do public history as I do.
Loose volumes from broken sets, books missing boards and spines, or books on uninteresting topics can not only can be found for a price that won’t break the bank, but books in poor condition can make it easy for students to see binding structures and construction details. These are aspects of the handbound book that can be harder to see in a library's collection of books selected for beauty or uniqueness.
If you have a local antiquarian book dealer it is well worth reaching out to them and explaining your interest. If they buy books by the lot and come across books that would be hard to sell on the shelves you might end up able to build up a sizeable teaching collection for little money.
Some features I look for when searching for volumes in my teaching collection:
book board: scaleboard, millboard, waterleaf
marbled or paste-paper endsheets
headbands
whole, half, and quarter bindings
different types of paper on half and quarter bindings
different types of leather
decorated vs plain, and blind vs gilt spines and covers
patched spots on leather covers
marbled or tree calf
edge decoration: gilt, painted, speckled, marbled
raised, false, and sawn-in cords
clasps or ties, or signs of their remains
format (folio, quarto, octavo, 12mo, etc)
unique signs of wear from use
old repairs (sewn pages, oversewn signatures)
holes from stab bindings that were resewn
attachment types for engraved plates
interesting collations
Portable, Adjustable Book Cradle
Although a teaching collection may not be of great monetary worth, it's still important to reduce wear on it. Letting students handle books is a great time to reinforce proper handling skills, too.
While we all long for safe and attractive cradles to display books, many of the nice book wedge options are pricier or bulkier than the needs of a classroom teacher or traveling researcher. Below I've given directions for making a simple book cradle that takes up a minimum of space.
Image of a collapsable book cradle assembled.
Image of a collapsable book cradle with additional spacer boards to provide more spine support.
Image of a collapsable book cradle, packed up, ready to go into its bag.
This book cradle is made from sheets of conservation-grade B flute held together with ½ in. double-sided tape. You can also laminate the layers together with PVA. It folds flat and can be kept in a simple drawstring bag, and you can size it down to fit into a carry-on suitcase. The cradle size below is too light and small to use with folios, but is a good side for quartos and under.
One 10-pack of 16x20 B-flute ($36.15, University Products) was enough to make a cradle with multiple sizes of wedges and spacer boards.
For photography work I cover the cradle with 2 yards of a black polyester cloth purchased on sale from JoAnn and laundered to remove lint. The whole set-ups lives in a drawstring cotton bag, stored in a flat file drawer.
The cradle in action covered in the backdrop during a research trip.
Directions
Base: made of three layers of corrugated board taped or glued together with fluting alternating direction for strength
Cut the following boards:
Two 20” x 14”
Two 7” x 14”
Two 13.5” x 14”
Assemble with the two 13.5 in. boards in the middle
Stoppers: made of two layers of corrugated board taped or glued together
Cut the following boards:
Eighteen 1” x 14”
Tape or glue the boards together to create 9 stoppers. Mark off 1 in. increments on each long side of the base and tape or glue the stoppers to the base.
Adjustable supports
Cut the following boards:
Two 14” x 16” (14 in. edge parallel to the fluting)
Crease each board in the center parallel to the fluting
More additional supports
Cut the following boards:
Four 1” x 14”
Tape or glue the boards together to create two support boards that can be used for books with narrow spines.
About the Author
R. B. Bartgis is an annual participant at Rare Book School at the University of Virginia and 2017 William T. Buice III scholarship winner, a conservator technician at the US National Archives, and gives living history presentations and workshops relating to the material culture of literacy at museums, historic sites, and colleges throughout the eastern U.S.
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