A few months ago, we received in our lab three books from a
set of five, dating back to 1803, in need of care. They are to be added to our
special collections through a gift we received.
The book covers were in very poor condition with very
damaged boards, brittle leather and marble papers, and missing endpapers. The
original leather on the spine was flaking with very little left of the original
title. Almost all of the gold tooling that had been applied was gone.
It was evident that no restoration could be performed to the
original boards to save them, so it was decided that a new binding in leather
(calf) and marble papers, similar to the original one, would be best to provide
these volumes with a longer life.
The textblocks were in good condition but in need of
cleaning. They were all dry cleaned, mechanically, to remove the surface grime.
The few tears they had were mended using Japanese Paper Tengujo 5gs and rice
starch paste. New endpapers were added using handmade McGregor papers.
Now the books are ready to be part of the Hodges Special
Collections and University Archives, at UNCG,