A talk with a museum archivist changed how I think about my own book repair work

I was helping a friend at the local history museum last week, just fixing a few old ledgers. I got chatting with their main archivist, Sarah. She was watching me reback a 1902 account book and said something simple that stuck with me. She said, 'You know, for us, the goal isn't to make it look new. It's to make sure it can be handled by researchers in 50 years without falling apart.' I've always aimed for a clean, invisible repair, but she made me realize I was focusing on the wrong thing for some jobs. My perfect, hidden joint might not be the strongest long-term choice if the original paper is brittle. Now I'm rethinking my whole approach for conservation versus restoration. Has anyone else had a client or project that shifted their focus from looks to pure function?

3 comments

3 Comments

emeryo5823d ago

Yeah, "make it look new" is how I end up with callbacks.

gray31423d ago

Last year I had a 1920s farm journal with pages like dry leaves. I used to hide my repairs with toned Japanese paper, but that stuff just doesn't hold up to flexing. Now I use a stronger, plain linen tape on the spines of those, even if you can see it. It looks like a repair, but it works. Like emeryo58 said, chasing the invisible fix just means it comes back to you later when it fails. The book has to survive the reading room first.

ryan_hart3823d ago

So when you use that linen tape, do you find yourself explaining the visible repair to the client first? I always worry they'll see the tape and think I did a bad job, even though it's the right choice for the book's life. How do you start that talk about strength over looks?