There comes a time in a bookbinder’s life when a Jacques board shear must be taken into the fold. My friends, that time arrived last April for Book Island. For non bookbinders reading this, I’ll just explain by saying that a bookbinder friend’s reaction was, “You just got a Maserati!” But like most of the equipment I now own, I never wanted it. I rejected several board shears that became available over the years. This one felt like the right one though, and as it slowly dawned on me that it could be mineallmine, I began to wrestle with the problem of how–and where–to move it. As some of you ma ..read more

Books are all so unique. This inalienable fact never ceases to impress and surprise me. Even books from a run of production of thousands of copies, after a few decades, all develop their own personalities. Perhaps because I am a conservator in private practice, or perhaps because it is just in my stubborn nature, I look at every repair project as a complete individual. In some ways I occupy a netherworld between conservation and restoration: all of my repairs must be sound functionally, but I do dip into making a book look good, perhaps more than a strict conservator would. Most of my clients ..read more

This past June, I got to visit Fairbanks, Alaska to teach a comprehensive workshop in book conservation. I was invited by the Alaska Literacy Council, who funded most of the costs of the workshop. It was an amazing opportunity for me, and one I did not take for granted. I put a lot of work into preparing for the workshop, and the students worked hard at their projects throughout the class. Several of the students had little to no experience in repairing books, but I was very happy with their results! Most of the pictures I took were outside of class, because we were so busy in class. Click on ..read more