Tag: Conservation

BOOKNESS with Ron King, coming soon…

As we enter the final week of the Bodleian’s Alphabet’s Alive! exhibition we wanted to share a taster of what’s to come in our next BOOKNESS podcast.

In the summer Alice and Jo were very lucky to speak to artist and founder of Circle Press, Ron King, who has multiple alphabet inspired works in the exhibition.

Alphabets Alive! is on at the Weston Library until 21st January 2024. Photo credit: Ian Wallman
‘ABC Paperweights’ and ‘Alphabeta concertina majuscule’ on display in the Weston Library

You have until 21st January to visit the exhibition which is spread cross the Bodleian’s Weston Library exhibition space and the Proscholium display (located in the entrance of the Old Library), and you can find Ron’s work in both parts of the exhibition.

So if you are in Oxford this week make sure you pop by and see the pieces for yourselves, and listen out for the next episode of BOOKNESS, featuring our conversation with Ron, which is on its way soon…

‘Alphabet Poster II’ in the Bodleian’s Proscholium display case

Useful links:

BOOKNESS speaks to Justine Provino

In the final podcast in this series of BOOKNESS, book conservator and PhD candidate Justine Provino talks about her research into the self-destructive book Agrippa: A Book of the Dead.

Listen to the episode here.

Justine Provino with Agrippa (Rec. a.25) at the Bodleian’s Visiting Scholars’ Centre.

It’s a nesting doll about ageing and decay, and the publisher, the artist, and the writer really worked together … to express all these ideas throughout the materiality of every component of the artists’ book

The codex wrapped in the textile ‘shroud’ within a recess in the box base.
Detail of label on the box lid.
Condition record of unbound Agrippa image, with traces of the ‘disappearing image’ (MS. Eng. b. 2160)

The release of this episode of BOOKNESS on 9th December 2022 marks the 30th anniversary of the publishing of this work. Happy birthday Agrippa!

Useful links for this episode:

  • Watch William Gibson’s poem Agrippa: A Book of the Dead
    running in emulation on a 1992-era Mac computer here
  • Read Justine’s article in issue 3 of Inscription

BOOKNESS speaks to Stephen Emmerson

In the third podcast in the series, BOOKNESS talks to poet and artist Stephen Emmerson about his work Translation of Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge, a paperback novel ‘translated’ into mushrooms.

Listen to the episode here.

In transforming, playing, or recomposing books, I’m trying to reconnect with the magic of it.

A record photograph taken by the Bodleian’s Conservation team showing the condition of  ‘Translation’ (Cons.Res. 43) in May 2021.

I kept it on the window sill … and it completely dried out … the preservation was kind of accidental to begin with …

” A nice array of fruiting”. A record photo showing a detail of the mushroom growth.

It could be rehydrated again, in theory, but hopefully it’s no longer spore producing for the sake of all the other books in the library…

Useful links and glossary checks in this episode:

BOOKNESS speaks to Yiota Demetriou

In this week’s episode, BOOKNESS talks to multi-media artist Yiota Demetriou, about her work  To You, a book printed in thermochromic ink.

Listen to the episode here.

A woman sits behind a table with her right hand placed on an open book. The book has black pages, but close to her hand white patches can be seen, with small black text. In her other hand she holds a mug with a hot drink. In the foreground is an open brown box.
Artist Laura Kriefman experiencing ‘To You’ (Image by George Margelis, 2019)

It’s a book as much as it is an art object … as a book, read it, interact with it, touch its pages, infuse its pages with your warmth … from the art experience, I guess it’s more about the audiences way of how they want to interact with it …

‘To You’ (Rec. d.625) on show in the Sensational Books exhibition at the Weston Library.

I’ve always been interested in interactive books since I was little, I am neurodiverse myself so it’s easier for me … to engage with books that … use different senses because they would capture my entire focus.

A white hand with a green sleeve pressed against a black piece of paper stuck to a grey wall.
A single leaf of ‘To You’ that visitors to the Sensational Books exhibition can interact with.

It is an artwork that is supposed to be touched and it’s supposed to wear and tear … as you start to expose and touch … as you’re reading the content, it becomes more familiar with you …

The interactive materials wall in the Sensational Books exhibition showing a leaf of thermochromic paper that has been activated by the heat of a hand, and shows signs of the many interactions that have happened already over the course of the exhibition.

Useful links and glossary checks in this episode:

  • Find out more about Yiota’s work here.
  • Listen again to episode 1 of BOOKNESS to recap on what artists’ books are and the collection here at the Bodleian.
  • Watch a video of To You in action.
  • Visit the Sensational Books exhibition at the Bodleian’s Weston Library in Oxford until 4th December 2022, and experience Yiota’s work for yourself!

BOOKNESS speaks to Ben Denzer

For our first artist interview in this series, BOOKNESS talks to book designer and artist Ben Denzer, about his work 20 Slices, a book created from Kraft American cheese.

Listen to the episode here.

’20 Slices’ by Ben Denzer (Photo courtesy of  Catalog Press)

This is already basically a book … these things look like pages, they’re kind of packed together, there’s an order, all I really did was bind those together and give them the cover. I thought it was interesting how it just becomes a book through that process

This image of the Bodleian’s “pristine” copy of 20 Slices  was taken by the Conservation team in May 2021 as part of the documentation of the object to record its condition.

’20 Slices’ by Ben Denzer (Cons.Res. 41)

I think of it as a book. But I also have a very broad definition of a book

20 Slices is on display as part of the Sensational Books exhibition at the Weston Library in Oxford until 4th December 2022.

Photos courtesy of Ian Wallman.

Introducing BOOKNESS, a podcast about artists’ books

BOOKNESS is a podcast series that wanders into the Bodleian Library’s collection of artists’ books, pokes around a bit and asks ‘what’s all this then?’

In the series we will be talking to artists, makers, researchers and curators and pondering matters such as what makes a book a book, anyway? What happens if a book is made of something that decays? Are there any limits to what a library can collect? And, of course, what does this book smell like?

BOOKNESS is hosted by conservator Alice Evans and librarian Jo Maddocks, and the release of this series coincides with the final month of the Bodleian Library’s Sensational Books exhibition, which is showing at the Weston Library until the 4th December 2022. It’s brought to you by the Bodleian Library’s Centre for the Study of the Book and has been supported by a generous donation to the Bodleian Bibliographical Press.

Listen to episode 1 here.

In this introductory episode, BOOKNESS is joined by Chris Fletcher, Keeper of Special Collections, and Professors Emma Smith and Adam Smyth, to set the scene of the Bodleian’s artists’ books collection and some of the ways these objects can be used and thought about.

Curator Emma Smith in the Sensational Books exhibition. Photo credit: Ian Wallman

… artists’ books reflect on ‘bookness’ … they are metabooks, they are books about books … they are about the book form …

The following artists’ books from the Bodleian collection are mentioned in this episode…

The three ‘pages’ are difficult to handle… and witty! ‘Endless Sleep’ by Stephen Emmerson (Cons.Res. 44)
The uncut pages are gently provocative, does a library understand that? ‘A little book of birds’ by Gaylord Schanilec (Erm. e.129)
It’s a very heavy and profound subject, which is contrasted by the physical format of the book, which is printed on kitchen paper. ‘It is bitter to leave your home : a true story depicted in typographic images’ by Romano Hänni (Rec. d.629)

Useful links and glossary checks in this episode:

  • You can read the full definition of ‘artists’ books’ from the Library of Congress here (.pdf)
  • The Bodleian oath is taken by all new staff and readers. The current version, in use since 1970, reads: “I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, nor to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document or other object belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the Library, or kindle therein, any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I promise to obey all rules of the Library.” If you want that on a Tea Towel we can make it happen.
  • The next edition of Inscription on ‘Folds’ is out later this month.

Textiles in Libraries: Context and Conservation

A binding with a gold and blue textile cover is displayed in an open purple box. There is damage to the covering of the spine which reveals the sewing supports underneath. The title of the project 'Textiles in Libraries: Context and Conservation' is overlaid.
Textiles in Libraries: Context and Conservation

The Bodleian’s Conservation and Collection Care team, in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of the Book, is embarking on a year of discovery in the field of Textiles in Libraries. The scope of this project is wide, from embroidered bindings to endbands, including textiles found between the pages, covering or wrapped around the binding, as well as the more unexpected places they can be found in library collections from tapestries to t-shirts.

As part of this project, the Library will be hosting a series of free online talks running from November 2021 to February 2022, bringing together conservators, curators and book artists to explore this topic further. Our speakers will highlight the many ways textiles are found in books and library collections, share case studies of collaborative conservation projects, examine what textile bindings can tell us about historic craft practices, and share examples of textiles used in contemporary book arts.

These talks will coincide with an exhibition held in Blackwell Hall of the Weston Library from November 2021, ‘The Needles Art’, which will show-case a selection of embroidered bindings from the Bodleian’s collections.

View the full programme and book tickets to the live talks here.

All talks will be recorded and publicly available to watch after the event.

Letterlocking: keeping post from prying eyes

by Emily Mayne (St Hilda’s College) and Callum Seddon (Merton College)

Jana Dambrogio at the workshop in the Weston Library, Bodleian Libraries
Jana Dambrogio at the workshop in the Weston Library, Bodleian Libraries

How did men and women secure their letters before the introduction of gummed envelopes? Why should the materiality of letters as folded packets interest scholars and conservators as much as their contents? Jana Dambrogio (Thomas F. Peterson (1957) Conservator at Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Daniel Starza Smith (British Academy postdoctoral research fellow, Lincoln College) led a workshop to explore these and related questions through a series of hands-on case studies.

When we send letters today, the envelope acts as a security, protecting the content from prying eyes. But envelopes as we think of them now were not invented until the mid-nineteenth century. Prior to this letters were secured by folding and various combinations of sealing, tying, cutting, and sewing, making the letter its own security device. ‘Letterlocking’, as Jana Dambrogio calls it, is a social and textual practice of document security that stretches back thousands of years, but the workshop focused particularly on techniques dating from the late sixteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Participants were able to open pre-sealed examples, and, throughout the workshop, learn to fold and lock their own.
letterlockingFig 2_sm
We began by opening a folded packet, sealed with a strip of paper and wax seal. Upon opening, a number of slits were visible, running vertically down each side of the paper; a triangular section of paper was also missing from the lower, right-hand corner of the unfolded letter. Many early modern letters currently survive in this state today, and it is only by thinking of letters as folded and sealed packets, rather than simply flattened objects, that we can begin to piece together why these material signs – vertical or horizontal slits, and missing triangular pieces – matter. In this example, the triangular piece of paper has been cut from the end of the letter and used as a sealing device to authenticate the packet. Anyone receiving this packet would know if its contents had already been read, because both wax seal and paper strip would be broken. It would take someone with access to an identical seal and paper-stock to replicate this security measure once opening it. This format of letterlocking is, therefore, a more secure method than the ‘tuck and seal’ method (also demonstrated in the workshop) in which one side of the packet is tucked into the other prior to sealing.

We then looked at a series of case studies of alternative letterlocking formats, each of which demonstrated the importance of bringing an analysis of a letter’s material form to bear on understanding the circumstances of its production, exchange, and reception. Wax is by no means a necessary part of letterlocking, as we learned by studying correspondence sent from the front line by a Russian soldier in the Second World War. This soldier secured his letter (into a triangular format) with the expectation that it would be opened and read by army censors, who would examine the post sent by troops to safeguard against the risk of military intelligence coming into the wrong hands. Similarly, a letter sent by Marie Antoinette to Cardinal Ignazio Boncompagni Ludovisi showed the importance of being able to open, but re-secure the letter with a removable paper lock and elaborate papered-seal. Other examples included a format often used by Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex in his correspondence with Elizabeth I: the letter is pleated, folded into a small packet and a length of thread is wound around the ends of the folded letter, and warm sealing wax is placed over the thread on one (and often both) of the exposed panels and impressed with a signet. Folding a letter in this way produces a thin rectangular packet easily concealed in the hand or sleeve, and choosing this letter format might then serve to communicate intimacy or a wish for intimacy between letter-writer and recipient, in addition to the written contents of the letter. John Donne’s letters were arguably the ‘show-stoppers’ of the workshop, if only for his spectacular seals: a sheaf of snakes, and Christ crucified on an anchor. Participants sealed their own versions of the letter formats demonstrated in the workshop using replicas of Donne’s own sealing devices that Dambrogio and Smith had specially made. Donne used many of the formats explored in the workshop, but perhaps unsurprisingly also took care to make more extravagant paper locks.

letterlockingFig 3_sm

The session ended with the chance to apply this knowledge to actual examples in the Bodleian’s Special Collections. We were able to materially ‘read’ surviving autograph Donne letters, besides other examples of letterlocking in some of the Bodleian’s manuscript letter collections. This final stage of the session served to illustrate an important point: letterlocking is useful for both researchers and conservators. After working through the examples, we could appreciate that letters were neither ‘flat’ objects (they only seem to be once they are bound into a composite volume), and that they conveyed a number of social signs through their material features. If scholars are repeatedly called upon to recognize the importance of the material text, letters are a useful place to begin exploring the connections between material form, content, and meaning.

“The Technical Examination of Old Master Drawings: a symposium in conservation science”, Clore Centre, British Museum, 20th May 2010

For about a year, I was looking forward to attending this symposium, which was organised by the Department of Scientific Research at the British Museum, with support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This was an unprecedented effort to gather conservators, conservation scientists and curators to present and discuss one of the most fascinating aspects of our work: the understanding of materials and techniques used by artists. It brought an opportunity to discuss conservation-related issues and the curatorial implications raised by scientific studies. The results from the work presented at the conference can most definitely be applied in the library context, and thus I found this conference most relevant when one considers current and future collaborations between different departments in The Bodleian Libraries, Oxford University and beyond.

The main subject of discussion were the extensive scientific studies of drawings from the British Museum and the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe at the Uffizi, Florence, carried out in preparation for the exhibition Fra Angelico to Leonardo: Italian Renaissance drawings (22 April – 25 July 2010).

Most of the talks were tailored around a methodology of work often used collaboratively by curators, conservators and scientists to develop a conservation approach: 1. Historical understanding of the provenance of items or collections, 2. Visual examination and technical imaging, 3. Chemical analysis, and 4. Conservation treatment.

A wide range of fascinating and well presented papers on the examination and characterisation of master drawings’ materials helped the audience to learn about the latest imaging techniques, such as the recently developed near infra-red multi-band scanner (“NIR”), which is currently being used for the study of Caravaggio’s paintings at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure e Laboratorio di Restauro Firenze. With regard to new imaging techniques, I particularly enjoyed Margaret Holben-Ellis talk “Reflecting Raphael: a closer look at the Morgan’s Agony in the Garden”, an enthralling presentation of the characterisation of the media used to depict the underdrawing in this cartoon. Visualising the morphology of the pricking in Raphael’s cartoon with the HIROX 3-D microscope was a compelling new experience for most of the audience. We were unanimously mesmerised by the wealth of information obtained with this imaging technique, which will contribute to a more comprehensive art historical understanding of Rafael’s cartoons.

I was intrigued by Lara Broeke’s current work on the translation into modern English of Cennino Cennini’s “Libro dell’Arte”, the 15th century “how to” book on Renaissance Art, which, amongst many others, includes techniques and recipes for underdrawing and miniatures for the illumination of manuscripts. Lara’s work is an update after Daniel V. Thompson’s translation, and includes the acknowledgements of ambiguities in Ceninni’s text, alongside with some corrections to Thompson’s translation. These corrections are based on empirical evidence after systematic reconstructions of the recipes, such as the preparation of ultramarine pigment and bistre ink, which are both used in the illumination of manuscripts as well as in master drawings. After this talk, I enjoyed the discussions on the use of bistre and iron gall ink by artists. Bistre was a common ink in the Renaissance, but with poorer flow properties than iron gall ink (used in Europe since the 12th century). Additionally, bistre is more transparent than iron gall, making it a better option to apply washes, rather than to produce lines fluently. Non-destructive instrumental analysis carried out on a large number of drawings suggests artists constantly used both inks in combination to achieve diverse effects in their drawings.

Well known, non-contact and non-invasive (non-destructive) analytical techniques were also highlighted by several talks during the day. I was impressed with the combined use of micro-Raman spectroscopy, micro-FTIR, XRF and vis-RF to study Andrea Mantegna paintings. This study involved the characterisation of iron gall ink and other materials used in works long attributed to this artist (“Madonna della Tenerezza” and “The Virgin Mary with a Child”), confirming that areas of the backgrounds were not painted by him.

Overall, this was an extremely useful and well attended symposium, which significantly contributed to acknowledge the need to continue pioneering the study of artists’ (and makers’) techniques in the museums, libraries and archives context.

Virginia M. Lladó-Buisán, Head of Book & Paper Conservation, Bodleian Libraries

CF10: Conservation in Focus. Icon Conference, Cardiff University 24-26 March 2010

The Institute of Conservation’s (Icon) first ever conference “CF10: Conservation in Focus” was recently held in Cardiff, Wales’ vibrant capital city, to consider the broad theme of UK Conservation – past, present and future. The conference aimed to:

  • Advance and share knowledge about conservation issues in and beyond Icon’s members.
  • To have an enjoyable conference where people have time to talk and network
  • To leave Icon stronger as an organisation

The first full day of the conference consisted of a one day plenary session and focused on the two themes – ‘evidence based decision-making in conservation’ and ‘a sustainable future for UK conservation’. Highlights of the first day included an argument from Andy Calver (St. Albans Museum Service) for the use of buffering agents to control environmental conditions rather than large-scale air-conditioning systems. There was also feedback on the success of the recent ‘Conservation in Focus’ exhibition at the British Museum. I saw the exhibition in September 2008 and thought it was a brilliant concept. The display showcased the conservation of objects and allowed visitors the opportunity to meet conservators and ask them questions whilst they worked. The outcome of the exhibition seemed mostly positive allowing the conservation department to have a much greater web presence. Increased interest has led to a number of videos and pod casts of conservation work to be uploaded.

The second day provided an opportunity for the Icon groups to host specialist half day seminars. I attended the conservation science and care of collections group sessions in the morning and afternoon, highlights of which included an update on Oddy materials testing at the British Museum from Julie Phippard. The BM feels that it has a responsibility to share results of material testing and as such will publish all known results in an online database which will clearly state whether materials are safe for use within museums and archives.

The organisers of the conference had also gone to the length of creating a Facebook page for the conference (CF10: are you going? (http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=77317902593&ref=ts). I found this incredibly useful as it allowed me to easily ask any questions about conference organisation and provided me with regular updates or news of last-minute changes.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the conference. It offered a perfect opportunity to chat with colleagues and a number of interesting papers were presented. The conference organisers made a particular effort to include evening social events in the main conference attendance cost so that all delegates could attend, creating even more networking opportunities. I eagerly look forward to the next conference which will hopefully have the same friendly atmosphere and flexible theme.

The full conference programme can be found online at http://www.icon.org.uk/images/stories/cf10_programme-110310.pdf

– From Jennifer Varallo (jennifer.varallo@bodleian.ox.ac.uk)

Bodleian Libraries

© 2025 Bodleian Libraries | Accessibility | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Cookies

This site uses cookies to support some content and functions, and also Google Analytics. By using this site you agree to their use. Find out more and opt out »

This site uses cookies to support some content and functions, and also Google Analytics »/a>