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    The Care of Fine Books
    The Care of Fine Books
    The Care of Fine Books
    Ebook223 pages1 hour

    The Care of Fine Books

    By Jane Greenfield, Nicholas A. Basbanes and Nick Lyons

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    The Care of Fine Books is a thorough, readable guide to caring for books of value. From a discussion of the various techniques and materials used in bookbinding to advice on handling and storage, Jane Greenfield has created a succinct yet complete resource for anyone who wants to preserve and protect their fine books.

    Whether you are a collector, a librarian, or a conservation professional, you will benefit from this expert advice. Learn about appropriate levels of light, temperature, relative humidity, and pollution; how to secure a collection against fire, insect infestation, flood, and theft; and methods for cleaning and repairing books that have already been damaged. Always practical and amply illustrated, this is a must-have reference for anyone who loves fine books.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSkyhorse
    Release dateJun 3, 2014
    ISBN9781629140483
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      Book preview

      The Care of Fine Books - Jane Greenfield

      Cover Page of Care of Fine BooksHalf Title of Care of Fine BooksTitle Page of Care of Fine Books

      Copyright © 2007, 2014 by Skyhorse Publishing

      Foreword copyright © 2007 by Nicholas A. Basbanes

      Afterword copyright © 2014 by Nick Lyons

      All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

      Skyhorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or info@skyhorsepublishing.com.

      Skyhorse® and Skyhorse Publishing® are registered trademarks of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

      Visit our website at www.skyhorsepublishing.com.

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      Second Edition ISBN: 978-1-62873-793-6

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Greenfield, Jane.

      The care of fine books / Jane Greenfield.

      Introduction by Nicholas A. Basbanes.

      p. cm.

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      Originally published: New York : N. Lyons Books. 1988.

      ISBN-13: 978-1-60239-078-2 (alk. paper)

      ISBN-10: 1-60239-078-9 (alk. paper)

      1.       Books – Conservation and restoration.

      2. Fine books.         1. Title.

      Z701.3.F5G73          2007

      025.7 – dc22

      2007017618

      Printed in China

      CONTENTS

      Foreword by Nicholas A. Basbanes

      Preface

      1. The Nature of Books

      2. The Storage of Books

      3. The Handling of Books

      4. Travel, Display, and Collecting

      5. Materials and Suppliers

      Afterword by Nick Lyons

      Bibliography

      Index

      FOREWORD

      By Nicholas A. Basbanes

      What a delightful circumstance it is that in the early years of the twenty-first century we should have newly released a trusted compendium of bibliographic knowledge that is chock full of solid advice on the care and preservation of worthwhile books. Even more fortuitous is that it should be made available to a new wave of needy readers in a smart new edition. In just two short decades, The Care of Fine Books has achieved that most coveted status of all: It has become indispensable to collectors, librarians and booksellers, both professionals and amateurs alike, not only for the sound guidance it contains, but just as much for the grace and accessibility of its style and the directness of its writing. With so much information, entertainment, and instruction coming to us these days electronically in the form of zeroes and ones, it is reassuring to hear a voice call out for what amounts to caution and calm in the face of paradigm shifts of seismic proportions. That the voice is that of Jane Greenfield—a former conservator at Yale University who has spent a lifetime devoted to the making and the care of precious books—makes this new release all the more welcome.

      The true beauty of it all is that this internationally respected authority on book conservation makes a distinction between volumes that are rare and volumes that are fine, with the explicit understanding that all works set down on paper are important and worth saving in and of themselves. Fine books, Ms. Greenfield points out, may be rare, but rare books are not always fine. What she is suggesting here, in essence, is that while scarcity and monetary value are certainly important factors to consider when deciding whether or not an artifact on paper merits protective measures, she also makes clear that something can be beautiful and important and well worth saving regardless of how many dollars it might fetch at auction or in the sales galleries of antiquarian booksellers.

      Everyone knows, of course, that a First Folio of Shakespeare in great condition and with an impeccable provenance can command as much as $8 million in today’s world, or that high spots in a genre we call modern first editions—a first issue copy of J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, let’s say, or Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird—can secure sums of $25,000 or more, triple that for a fine copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby with a crisp dust jacket. Needless to say, it behooves the keeper of such treasures to insure that they are treated properly and well, and the truth is that anyone who spends this kind of money on books of such stature does not need to be persuaded they require regular maintenance and close attention. It is all the other books in the bibliophilic universe—be they the medium rare tomes as some institutions now describe titles that occupy a kind of limbo zone between the commonplace and the scarce, or those that can be described simply as fine—that are the focus of her attention as well.

      By Ms. Greenfield’s definition, a fine book is a book that is printed on well-made paper, and bound handsomely in a way that the mechanical components, as she puts it, work well together. Mechanical components, of course, are quite different from the text, which is another consideration entirely, and a topic to consider elsewhere. In this instance, mechanical components are an aspect of aesthetics and involve elements of what are known as the book arts. By this measurement, the assumption is that books are important in and of themselves as expressions of human wisdom and inquiry, and like all other matters that are subjective and arbitrary, the appeal and relevance of the content is a personal matter. To her credit, Ms. Greenfield makes no distinction either between paperbacks and hardcovers; all books, in her benevolent view, are created equally, and all are deserving of long and fruitful lives.

      The steps a careful custodian of books must take are laid out with great precision and admirable economy of words. And because she makes no assumptions on whatever prior knowledge a person might have on the architecture and framework of the miracle of human ingenuity we call a book, she offers a concise refresher course on what constitutes its various parts and appendages, and outlines in specific detail the factors, as she calls them, that affect books. They include light, temperature, humidity, and the weather most assuredly, but other threats such as babies, cats, rodents, mold, insects and the like are discussed in detail, too. She categories these as biological attacks—along with natural disasters that endanger these fragile objects on a daily basis; not surprisingly, human error is probably the most egregious menace of all. To protect against each of these perils, thankfully, there are steps to take, and they are outlined herewith in easy-to-master fashion.

      And then there are the tidbits of advice that make perfect common sense, but need to be reiterated all the same. Do we need to be reminded that one must never lean on a book or to use a book as a support for writing? Or that it is not a very good idea to use a pen in close proximity to paper that is not intended to be marked permanently—ink spots are generally irreversible, after all, and pencils are so much cleaner to use— or that fingers and eyeglasses do not make for sensible bookmarks? The answer is yes indeed in each and every instance, since proper vigilance never takes a holiday.

      There are those out there today who would regard the care of something so ubiquitous as the book as a decidedly quaint exercise, a medium of intellectual transmission that technology is sure to render irrelevant with time, and who consequently ask, why bother with such an anachronism? Never mind that the prediction of a paperless society has already been proven fallacious—offices use more paper today than ever before—or that books show no signs of forfeiting the hold they have on our psyches, our emotions, and our very well-being. It only makes sense that we pay these beloved companions the proper respect they have earned, for let it be said that no one individual ever really owns a book. The true bibliophile understands that we have a responsibility to watch over our books for a period of time, and then, when the time is right, take steps to insure safe passage to the next generation. With The Care of Fine Books at hand, the transfer can be made with ease, confidence, and a clear conscience that everything that could be done properly, has been done.

      PREFACE

      Fine books, that is books well printed on high quality paper and handsomely bound so that the mechanical components of the book work well together, are different from rare books since fine books may be rare, but rare books are not always fine. Rare books might be printed on newsprint, which contains damaging chemicals and has a short life expectancy (paperbacks and comic books, for example). Such books are rare because of their fragility and therefore scarcity.

      Fine books stand a much better chance of survival than fragile, rare ones, but in both cases deterioration can be slowed (it can never be stopped completely) with proper housing and handling, and this is what this book is about. It is written for private collectors, rare book librarians, and curators, and ranges from simple handling procedures —how to pick up, or not pick up, a book—to optimum housing conditions and display techniques.

      Knowing something about the materials books are made of, how they are put together, how they are affected by their environment, and what their most vulnerable parts are, helps in knowing how to store, handle and display them properly and the things to do, and not to do, to prolong their life and maintain them in good condition. The needless damage

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