[ Music ] >> Shelly Smith: The Visible Human. This visceral anatomy model allows us to see beneath the skin layer by layer, revealing the organs, muscle, and bones that make up the structure of the human body. What if you could see beneath the skin of a book, peeling back the covers to reveal the leather, paper, and thread that make up the structure of a bookbinding. I'm Shelly Smith, head of book conservation at the Library of Congress, and today I'm going to give you a look inside the book using both images and actual models of historic book structures, like this model called a cutaway that has a portion of the covering removed to better show the sewing, linings, and structure within. A little later, I'll give you some information about recent projects that have been carried out by the Library's Conservation Division, including some links for later viewing, and we'll have an opportunity for your questions at the end. In fact, we have a panel of experts here to answer your questions, and I'll introduce you to them later on. For now, if you have a question, you can post it at any time using the Q&A function, but now, let's get back to books, and for that we have to start even before books. Early writing substrates go back thousands of years and include cave walls, pictographs, or ideograms on bronze, bone, or pottery, or clay tablets, such as cuneiform tablets. These examples from approximately 2000 BC can be found in the collections right here at the Library of Congress. If you're interested in more about this or other library collections I'll show later, the links to these collections will be posted in the chat. Egyptians from as early as 3500 BC wrote on papyrus shown here on the left. Papyrus is a layered mat made of papyrus reeds that were pressed, pounded, and smoothed in order to make a suitable writing surface. Amate, a form of paper made of bark, shown on the right was used in Mesoamerica. Early Chinese and Romans wrote on textiles made of silk or linen, and Romans also used wood and wax tablets seen in a modern model on the right, sometimes hinges on multiple tablets together, seen in the sculpture on the left, which may be some of the earliest prototypes of book pages as we know them. A book in the form that is most familiar to us is known as a codex, which comes from the Latin word codex, meaning trunk or block. It's made of individual sheets that are stacked and bound together along one edge, such as in this historic Nag Hammadi codex of a historic Nag Hammadi codex or gnostic gospel from the fourth century. This model approximates that historic structure, using the papyrus sheets that were folded in half, sewn together through the fold and with pieces of leather at the center to help protect the fragile papyrus. This model was made by a book conservator, according to detailed examinations and descriptions of the original courtesies that were discovered in Egypt in 1945. Prior to the codex, most writing was kept as single sheets or as a scroll where the individual sheets were attached end to end and was either read vertically or horizontally where the writing was placed in a series of columns. Rather than rolling the scroll, having the writing in columns made it possible to fold it into an accordion structure, such as in this model of a Chinese accordion binding. By cutting some of the folds and binding the pages along one edge, we start to see the familiar codex format. There's evidence of the codex being used in many cultures as early as the first century, and the codex had mostly replaced the scroll in the Western world by the fourth century. The earliest Western books were written by hand on parchment, which is the skin of an animal, usually, calf, goat, or sheep that is prepared in a way that makes it smooth and white, an ideal writing surface. Parchment is known to have been used as early -- as a writing surface as early as 500 BC, but it wasn't used frequently until many centuries later. It's much more durable and permanent than papyrus, which could be fragile, but it was also much more expensive to produce. Parchment is different from tanned animal skin, what we know as leather, in the way that it's prepared. To make parchment, an animal skin is soaked in lime solution and then stretched on a frame. The skin is then scraped on both sides to remove the last of the flesh and hair and to make the skin thickness more uniform. The final product is stiff, white, and smooth. Though a discerning eye can tell the difference between the skin side and the flesh side of parchment, much like the grain side or the suede side of leather, both sides can be prepared with pumice powder or other treatments to make them ready to receive ink or paint. In the Middle Ages, after the fall of the Roman Empire, books in Western culture were mostly the incredibly laborious work of monks living in monasteries, who made books both for their own libraries and for other readers and scholars. The methods and the materials used varied depending on geographic location and culture, but let's take a closer look at how a book might have been made in the 12th century in a European monastery. A monk doing this work would have been known as a scribe, and that work might have taken place in a scriptorium within the monastery. A scribe would have worked up to six hours per day, in addition to his other duties, writing each letter of his manuscript using a pen and ink. He would receive his parchment pages fold it in half and nest it together to form a section or a choir. These sections are then arranged in order and stacked to make a book block or a text block. On each page, he would use an awl to prick small holes and then a ruler to make nearly invisible crease lines to guide his text lines and define his margins. These lines are called blind, because they make an impression in the parchment but don't contain any pigment. When each handwritten page was complete, the sack of folded parchment pages went to the bindery, depicted in this woodcut. The first step is sewing. Each section is pierced through the fold at intervals to guide the linen sewing thread, then each section is placed one by one on a sewing frame to which sewing supports have been added, seen in this illustration being used by the figure on the left. This sewing frame used to this day by binders or conservators is very similar. The sewing supports usually strips of animal skin, a cord made of hemp or flax help tie the separate sections together. The sewing thread goes through the inside of the fold of each section, then outside to wrap around the sewing support and then back inside the section. This continues until all the sections are sewn together, creating what's known as the text block. The text block has a spine where the sewing supports are located, a head, the top of the book, a tail, the bottom of the book, and the fore-edge, which is opposite the spine. Once the text block is complete, it's time to prepare the boards or the interior rigid part of the book's cover. Books at this time would have been made with wooden boards, and the wood used can sometimes help scholars determine the region where and the time period when a book was bound, both by the species of the wood and by the way it was shaped or carved. The boards are secured to the textblock by lacing the sewing supports through the channels carved into the boards. This book would have also had end bands. End bands are supports sewn at the head and the tail of the spine, and at this time, they were also structural, as they were also secured by lacing or otherwise attaching them to the wooden boards, such as in this model of a Byzantine binding. This uncovered historical model shows multiple cores or supports of a Byzantine binding and how they're sewn both into the text block and through holes in the wooden boards, and bands can also have decorative elements. The primary end band sewn first is structural, while the secondary end band, often sewn with multiple colors of thread and sometimes with different patterns, is sewn over the top of the primary end band. In this model of a Romanesque binding with multiple cores -- that has multiple cores that have been laced into the boards, and then decorative sewing was added to a tab in the covering material. Once the boards are firmly attached to the text block, the spine and the boards can be covered over the whole of the boards or just part, such as in this model with partly uncovered oak boards. Books were usually covered with leather that had been tanned or tawed. Tanned leather is similar to what we think of and what we're most familiar with when we think of leather. It's something supple and flexible and capable of being dyed in different colors. What you may be less familiar with is Todd skin, and that's spelled tawed skin, and that's spelled T-A-W-E-D. Tawing is a method of preserving an animal skin that uses aluminum salts and produces a skin that is durable and flexible and usually white in color. To cover the book, the skin is dampened and coated with adhesive, usually high glue or paste, and then it's wrapped around the boards, tucking the leather very carefully around the end bands and the board edges and mitering the corners, so that they meet or overlap. It's then wrapped tightly to dry, sometimes tying it up with cord around the sewing supports to ensure that it adheres firmly and to enhance the appearance of the sewing supports, which become raised bands on the spine. With this, the book is fully bound, but it may still receive some kind of decoration. This decoration is also crucial to scholars in determining the place and date of a binding. In the 12th century, such as on this original binding from approximately 1150 in the Library's Rosenwald Collection, the decoration would have been blind, which I mentioned before. This means a hot metal tool would have been used to make impressions in the leather, but no pigment or gold would have been used to fill those impressions. The decoration could be ruled lines or small decorative elements that had been carved or cast in metal to make a decorative tool. When the tool is heated and pressed into the leather, it creates a permanent impression in the skin. Other decoration called furniture could also be added to the bound book. Furniture includes metal clasps, which were added to the fore-edge of the book to help to keep it closed, and that is pictured on the right. I think we might be a little behind. There we go, pictured on the right. This had the added benefit of helping to keep the parchment pages flat. Parchment is very reactive to moisture and can swell and cockle when exposed to high humidity. Clasp at the fore-edge of a book helped to restrain the pages, so they were more likely to remain flat. In Islamic books of this and other time periods, we often find a fore-edge flap that fully enclosed the fore-edge when the front cover was closed. Other furniture includes metal bosses, which are like raised buttons on the surface of the boards, usually at the corners and at the center, and corner pieces that wrap around the edges of the boards. Both protect the surface of the leather from abrasion when placed flat and could also be very ornate and decorative. Very special bindings may have been decorated with precious metal or jewels. It should be quite clear that producing a single book was incredibly labor intensive, making books very expensive and therefore out of reach for most people. That all began to change with the prevalence of two things, paper and printing. Paper has existed as a writing material for millennia, having been documented in China as early as the first century. By the eighth century, it had spread to the Islamic world and to Europe by the 11th century. Paper mills were cropping up all over Europe by the 14th century, and fine paper was commonly used for woodcuts and engravings. Paper is created when cellulose fibers suspended in water are formed on a screen like this large screen behind me, creating a thin, even mat of fibers, which is then pressed and dried. To make a handmade sheet of paper, the matman [phonetic] seen here on the far left in this illustration of the paper making process takes the screen with a removable frame known as a deckel [phonetic] and dips it into the mat of paper fibers in water and lifts it up, allowing the water to drain through the screen and leaving the paper fibers behind. The formed sheet is then transferred to a felt, a process known as couching, and then the paper is pressed and finally hung to dry. There are variations and nuances, of course, but that's the general procedure. Paper came in standard sizes, and some of the book sizes that we may be most familiar with today are still based on handmade paper sheet sizes. A royal-sized sheet was 20 inches by 25 inches. Folded once to make two leaves or four pages, that book would be called a folio, and it would, after trimming, be approximately 18 inches tall and 12 inches wide. Folded twice to make four leaves, that book would be called a quarto, and that would be about 11 to 12 inches tall and about nine inches wide. Folded a third time to make eight leaves or 16 pages, that book would be called an octavo, and it would be about nine inches tall and six inches wide, and that should seem like a pretty familiar size to those of us who are used to hardback books. The fact that the growing prevalence of paper occurred around the very same time that the printing press using movable type was invented in the mid 15th century, likely helped to fuel the incredible surges of both. Printing with ink had already been around for 1,000 years with woodblock printing, in particular in China and other parts of Asia being prolifically produced, and even movable type with ceramic, wooden, and metal characters was already being used in China and Korea when Johannes Gutenberg came into the picture. A revolutionary invention doesn't happen overnight, but scholars agree that Johannes Gutenberg, an inventor and goldsmith from Mainz in present day Germany gets the bulk of the credit for inventing a system of printing using a press and individual pieces of movable type cast in metal that could be rearranged or recomposed. He definitely had the assistance of collaborators, and he also had financial backers, who sued him and took his invention from him, but before they did, he participated in the production of some of the first examples of European printing, the most famous of which now bears his name, the Gutenberg Bible. It's also known as the Latin Bible or 42 Line Bible for the number of lines present in the columns on each page. There are currently 49 copies known to exist, but only 21 are complete copies. Only four of the complete copies are printed on parchment, and one of those is at the Library of Congress, and it is seen here. The Gutenberg Bible is believed to have been printed in 1455 or 56. None of the copies have a printed date, but one was signed and dated by the binder in 1456. The Library of Congress' copy was originally bound in two volumes, but it was rebound in three volumes at a later date believed to be just a little later in the 15th century, so still relatively contemporary to its printing. Looking at this and other images, you'll see how it showcases many of the binding processes I've just discussed. The printed parchment sections are sewn on raised split [inaudible] sewing supports made of tawed leather. The [inaudible] are laced through wooden boards made of shaped oak, as are the primary and the end supports. Secondary decorative end bands of colored thread were sewn over the primary end bands. The color has faded, but these end bands were likely once pink, blue, and white, which was a very popular color combination for the time. It was fully covered in tawed pigskin. A blind tool decoration includes lines as well as small repeat designs, and there are metal clasps at the fore-edge to help hold the volume where this parchment page is closed. The paper copies of the Gutenberg Bible were printed on royal-sized paper folded once to make a folio size volume. Each complete bible on paper would have contained over 322 full sheets of paper, and the parchment copies would have likely included the skins of over 100 animals. So, how have bookbinding techniques and materials changed over time, changing something like the Gutenberg Bible into a hardback or a paperback copy that you might have on your shelf at home? First, the paper, originally handmade, one sheet at a time on a wire screen would eventually start to be made by a machine starting in the early 1800s. That process became more and more automated, and the paper machines of today are capable of creating continuous rolls of paper that are hundreds of feet long. So, the size of books is no longer tied to the size of a handmade sheet of paper. The material used to make paper is different as well. Once made of rags from old textiles, resulting in high quality, permanent paper, the industry began using wood pulp to make paper starting in the mid 1800s. Wood fibers contain lignin, a material that produces acid, which may result in paper that turns brown or becomes brittle over time. Significant processing and chemicals in the paper making process are required to remove lignin and make wood pulp paper more permanent, and that is one reason why you might see 500-year-old paper that's in better condition than 100-year-old paper. Next, the sewing, sewing supports became less and less robust and were sometimes recessed into channels sewn into the spine. Even so, the look of raised bands was still sometimes fashionable, and fake ones would then be added to the spine. Also, in order to speed hand sewing, sometimes the binder would add several sections of paper to the sewing frame at a time and skip between them, rather than sewing each all along. Books now are mostly sewn by machine without any sewing supports. If they're sewn at all, most paperbacks are adhesive bound, meaning they're made of single sheets held together with a layer of glue on the spine. Boards that were once made of wood soon began to be constructed of laminated sheets of paper or chipped or pulped fiber made into thicker sheets, now referred to as binders board. Sewing supports could still be laced through the boards, but that became eventually too labor intensive, and then the supports were merely frayed out and glued to the surface. Full leather covering also became half or quarter leather with leather just on the spine and the corners with decorative but less expensive paper or cloth to fill the space, and using full cloth or paper instead of leather was even less expensive. But things really changed in the 19th century with the prevalence of the case binding and the increased demand for books by the general population. Up to this point, people would have often bought their books in printed sheets or in temporary bindings directly from a printer, and then they would take them to a binder, who would bind the book to their specifications. With a cased binding, the text block and the cover, also called a case, that was made of boards and a spine piece and full covering will be made entirely separately and then joined together at the very end. This led to further automation and the ability to create multiple identical copies of a book. Publishers began manufacturing books, and the entirely separate covers meant they could create multiples of elaborate artistic stamp designs to catch the eye of readers. But no evolution of the book from then to now is as sad as the end band. Once both beautiful and structural, the end band helped to hold the text block into the cover, as with this spectacular historic Byzantine end band. Decorative end bands could be incorporated into the covering material itself, such as in this example of a traditional Armenian end band. Even when the end bans were no longer attached to the boards of a book, they could still be elaborate, sewn with multiple cores with different colorful silk thread, such as in this fine binding from the early 19th century. But it wasn't long before thread was used to sew an end band completely separately on a piece of textile that was nearly glued to the spine, and now what we're most likely to see is just a little striped piece of cloth. I'm sure many of you can find the remnants of this once proud tradition on your books at home and had no idea of its history or its evolution. The way I think of it, it's kind of like how humans turned a wolf into a pet. It's definitely cute, but really a shadow of its former self. I have glossed over so much today, and I focused very much on Western traditions, in order to tie into the modern books that we in the US might find on our own bookshelves, but there are incredible bookbinding traditions from all over the world. What I've talked about today is a fraction of the knowledge of thousands of years of history and variations present in different cultures, geographic regions, and time periods. Historians and scholars use primary sources, such as the collections at the Library of Congress, to piece together this history. Where do I come by my knowledge, you might ask. I'm trained as a conservator of rare books, and as a conservator, I have a unique insight into the way books are constructed. Because I get to see books when they're broken and because I often have to take something completely apart to put it back together, I have the privilege of being able to see inside a book, much like that visible human model and like this cutaway model of a book. And because part of my job is to repair bindings when they failed or broken, I and other conservators closely studied the historical methods of book production. All of the historic models that I've shown you today were made by hand by conservators at the Library of Congress to help them to understand all they can so they can more effectively conserve the Library's rare collections. As conservators, we work closely with the curators and librarians in the different collections divisions within the Library, helping to ensure the preservation of its books, documents, and other works on paper, and photographs. We do that by carrying out surveys, constructing protective housings, conducting research, and performing treatment. If this presentation has inspired any interest in the Conservation Division at the Library of Congress, I'd like to direct you to some additional information we have available on the Library's website. This will be posted on the Conservation Division webpage, and we'll also post these links in the chat. First, for a fascinating look into the conservation of a 19th century photo album, we have this short video and other links to additional information about the Emily Howland album. This album was recently jointly acquired by the Library and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The album was owned by a prominent abolitionist Emily Howland, excuse me, and contains, among other photographs, the earliest known photograph of Harriet Tubman, previously unknown to scholars. Photograph conservator Alicia Chipman and book conservator Jennifer Evers discuss how they treated the bound album and the photographs within in preparation for both research use and exhibition. And this album is currently on display at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Next, we have two presentations that were made by conservation staff earlier this year during the American Library association's Preservation Week. In one, conservators Alan Haley and Dan Patterson talk about the conservation treatment of the Yongle Dadian, which is a manuscript encyclopedia from China from the 16th century. In the presentation, they discussed the unique nature of these materials from the text paper to the yellow silk covers and, in particular, how they were prepared for digitization. In the second presentation, conservator Leslie Long illustrates her impressive knowledge of 19th and 20th century American book design, including some stunning images of book covers, from what is known as the Golden Age of book design. Next for an in-depth look in a way to construct a historically accurate Armenian traditional end band, please watch this video of Library conservator Tamara Ohanian [phonetic]. Tamara is an expert in Armenian and Islamic bookbinding, and in this video, she takes the viewers step by step through the entire process to hand work this beautiful structural end band. We also have this short video about the conservation of the Omar Ibn Said collection. Omar Ibn Said was an educated man kidnapped from his home in West Africa in the early 1800s and enslaved in the United States. His autobiography, written in Arabic, is included in this collection. Conservator Sylvia Albro treated the autobiography, and I made a facsimile for use by researchers. Next, we have Jim -- we have conservator Jim Thurn, showing how conservation staff at the Library construct custom-made protective housings for the Library's collections, including more unusual materials, such as globes and pre-Columbian artifacts from the Kislak Collection. Next, we have this video, which is another presentation from ALA's preservation week. In it, the staff from the Library's Veterans History Project and the Conservation Division discuss how they work both with veterans and with their materials to help preserve their first hand accounts. And finally, if you'd like to try your hand at making a simple pamphlet book yourself, the Library Center for Learning, Literacy and Engagement has a short video at this link that has step by step instructions on how to make a mini book. These are all some of the stories that we in the Conservation Division have told about the work that we do at the Library. But if you have questions of your own, we have lists of resources and answers to frequently asked questions on the webpage for the Preservation Directorate, which can be found here. This link is also posted in the chat, and with that, I hope you have been thinking of your questions, because we have an expert panel here to answer whatever questions you may have. Amelia Parks, preservation librarian in the Preservation Directorate, has been helping me all throughout this session and keeping track of the questions that may have come in while I was speaking. She'll be reading your questions for us. We also have Jon Sweitzer-Lamme, who is a general collections conservation technician and Andrew Robb, head of Photograph Conservation and also the head of our Emergency Response Team. Amelia will read the questions, and then we'll decide amongst us who is the best fit to answer, and please feel free to continue to send your questions. We'll do our best to answer as many as we can in the time that we have remaining. So Amelia, what's our first question? >> Amelia Parks: Our first question is, can consumers get their own old worn out but maybe not valuable books conserved? And I'm going to put a link in the Q&A as well to help answer that. >> Shelly Smith: Because I know exactly what link she is putting in, absolutely. As a matter of fact, the Professional Association for Conservators is known as the American Institute for Conservation, and they have a spectacular tool on their website to help you find a conservator. You can put in the type of material that you have, whether that's a book or a photograph or a painting and your geographical region, and they will give you a list of conservators that could be available to do that treatment work. >> Amelia Parks: Thank you. Do conservators specialize in different periods of bindings? >> Shelly Smith: Definitely, definitely. I think that most book conservators have a strong base of knowledge in most historical time periods, but many do specialize in a particular time period or region. Tamara Ohanian is our expert in Armenian and Islamic binding, and that's a very good example. >> Amelia Parks: All right, how were binders volumes used to bind sheet music around the turn of the century? >> Shelly Smith: Wow, that is a really specific question, and I think I have to do some research on that. Amelia, is that one that we could follow up on later with an email from either Ask a Librarian or some way? >> Amelia Parks: This is the perfect type of question to send in to Ask a Librarian, because that gives us time to find the expert who can best answer it for you. >> Shelly Smith: Excellent. >> Amelia Parks: Could each of you talk briefly about how you got interested in your work and this type of scholarship? Let's start with Andrew or Jon. >> Andrew Robb: I got interested in conservation, because I was making photographs. I was [inaudible] in school in the yearbook and started getting interested in art history when I was in college and then realized that people did this as a job and started focusing on caring and learning about this technology and the history of these materials. >> Jon Sweitzer-Lamme: I came at conservation from a library background. So, I first began working in conservation while also working for my college's Red Book Library and seeing sort of the way in which collections can be used or the way that conservation contributes to the larger use of the lot, the collections throughout the library really got me interested in general collections conservation. >> Shelly Smith: And I'm the last one. I also, when I was an undergraduate, I had actually never heard about conservation before, and I think it's a shame, because I think that conservation as a profession is so fantastically interesting and multidisciplinary, but I was interested in libraries, and I was thinking about maybe going to graduate school to become a librarian, and I, by chance, learned about conservation. There was an internship that was offered at my college that was at the local archives, and I applied for that internship, and I was absolutely fascinated and loved the work and started looking into some of the conservation graduate programs, did a lot of coursework to meet the requirements in both studio arts and art history and chemistry in order to be able to apply and then went to a conservation graduate program. >> Amelia Parks: Thank you. When did paperback books start to appear? This comes from someone who has observed that they were common in the 1950s but would like to know how much further they actually go back. >> Shelly Smith: That -- please. >> Jon Sweitzer-Lamme: Yeah, as Shelly says, lots of conservators have specialty types of bindings, and I have begun as a general collections conservator [inaudible]. I have begun to specialize in adhesive bindings. Adhesive bindings were first popularized in the 1930s for particularly very cheap books to make them -- make books really accessible to the masses. There were some attempts in the 1850s, but they did not work, and adhesive bindings that can last, as you may know, a lot of early [inaudible] bindings tend to fall apart. And [inaudible] bindings that can last have really only happened in the last 40 or 50 years. >> Amelia Parks: Thank you. How can somebody find out more about conservation training? >> Shelly Smith: Andrew, do you want to take that one? >> Andrew Robb: Sure. As Shelley mentioned, there are a handful of conservation graduate programs in the United States, one in Canada, a few in England, and about the same number in Europe. So, that's where mainly people get their conservation training. You tend to apply in the United States through an overall program, so that you specialize. I went to the University of Delaware, and I specialized in photographs, but I worked with objects conservators, book conservators, paper conservators, [inaudible] conservators. We all trained together in Europe and worked in a slightly different way, but if you want to know more, again, the American Institute for Conservation is a good resource for that. >> Amelia Parks: Thank you, and that link for find a conservator will also direct you to that website as well. I have a question here specifically about the presentation. They may have misunderstood, but did you suggest, Shelly, that medieval scribes did their copying work on already bound courtesies? They believe that the work had been done on parchment sheets, which were then cut and bound. Can you clarify? >> Shelly Smith: Absolutely, and in the presentation, the scribe would receive their parchment pages folded and would do their work, and then the folded sections or choirs would be put in order in order to go to the binder. So yes, they would be working in essentially on single sheets, but those pages could be folded and nested together, so that the pages progressed in the correct order. >> Amelia Parks: Thank you. Has anyone conserved anything from Timbuktu? >> Shelly Smith: I have not. >> Jon Sweitzer-Lamme: I have not, but I did [inaudible] I did donate to the nonprofit that was working on the -- on that book that's sort of the [inaudible] of the Islamic libraries from [inaudible]. Yeah, I think, I wonder if that's what they're asking about. >> Amelia Parks: Thank you. Oops, questions are jumping around. Okay, here's another one about your educational backgrounds. They kind of want to know what subjects your backgrounds are in. Is it art or graphics or science? >> Shelly Smith: All of the above. Go ahead. >> Andrew Robb: It's a good question. As Shelley mentioned, it's a really quite multidisciplinary field. So, as requirements for graduate training, you get [inaudible] you have to take classes in chemistry, because you have to understand the physical makeup of the materials and how they deteriorate, but you also need to understand how they're made. So, that typically will involve some art history or some historical context in something like anthropology or some other thing that's related to how the objects are made or the cultures in which they're made. And then you also need to have fine hand skills. So, you have to take a fair amount of fine arts classes as well, and generally, one of those areas is a challenge for somebody, because they're strong in one of them or two of them but not all three at the same time. And, in fact, taking classes in all three, as an undergraduate, it's very hard to do all of the requirements within a four-year timespan, because chemistry labs and studio art classes, they're scheduling in a way that you can't take them at the same time, so that you need all of that background, because after you learn all of that, you have to then learn about all of these different kinds of materials, how they're made, and it really -- you keep learning your whole career. >> Amelia Parks: Thank you. What type of situations require emergency response for books, and how does this branch of conservation differ from others? >> Andrew Robb: Well, I'll start with that. Situations typically involve some sort of water emergency. It can be a leak, it can be a very large regional storm. We've been involved in those kinds of things, both here and as consultants in other places, but what you're really worried about is physical endangerment of your collections, because the building is not protecting the items. And typically, whether it's a fire or a flood or weather event, water is a big component, and we worry a lot about water, because most library materials are really at risk from getting wet, and they're also a risk of damage from mold if they become wet and you can't dry them in time. So, we really focus on trying to protect things from getting wet and what to do when they do get wet. >> Amelia Parks: Okay, so there's a question about what is the earliest book or manuscript in the Library's collection, and I'm going to put a link into Q&A of the one that was talked about in the presentation. But maybe you guys could talk about non-Western books that are very early examples. >> Shelly Smith: My goodness, and I don't know if I -- I don't know if I can do that off the top of my head. >> Amelia Parks: That's okay, too. >> Shelly Smith: That's a tough one. >> Amelia Parks: How about the oldest Western-- >> Shelly Smith: We have a lot of collections. >> Jon Sweitzer-Lamme: I can talk very, very surface level about non-Western books. The printing in China and Korea especially has had a lot of starts over the between about the eighth century and the 13th century, doing some really interesting stuff with hand carved wood blocks and with metal or with actually cast clay as well, but they're -- for any number of different reasons, it did not sort of catch fire in the way that it did in the Western world. >> Shelly Smith: We actually do have some metal Korean type in the collections from the 14th century, is that correct? I think that might -- 15th, 14th, it's relatively contemporary to Gutenberg, and there are scholars now, you know, really looking into what kind of influence the printing that was happening in China in Korea might have had on the Western -- the surge of Western printing, yeah. >> Amelia Parks: Thank you. Could each of you talk about one of your most interesting projects and maybe a little bit about what you hope the public will take away from your work? >> Jon Sweitzer-Lamme: I mean, I might start with something that's a little bit off-kilter, but on Friday, I treated a Daniel Piper [phonetic] book, and it just really reminded me of the way in which we, you know, we don't know what's going to be important. In the general collections context, we're seeing a lot of stuff that is brand new, came right off the press and somehow got damaged, and I really, I just hope that we're able to create an environment or create a resource of these books in the future in, you know, in centuries that are able to give scholars what they need to understand what was happening in 2021. >> Andrew Robb: I'll just say briefly, I worked on a project that I got a question from the reference section head in manuscripts to see if I'd be willing to come up to the reading room and look at the [inaudible] that he found in a collection. Our Manuscripts Division has many millions of items, and this was something that was correctly identified as photograph in the finding aid, but as it turns out, it was a daguerreotype of San Francisco from 1849, and it's one of the first outdoor views of San Francisco right after the Gold Rush. It was in a ship, boat, a [inaudible] captain's papers that, again, our finding aid said it was there, said it was a photograph, but we had no idea till we saw it. But it was this extremely early photograph of San Francisco, and that's the kind of thing, working in our collections here, that's just so exciting. There are things that we come across that excite us just about every day. >> Shelly Smith: And I think I will -- we have such fantastic collections and so many great projects that come through the Conservation Division, but I think one of the more interesting things that I've worked on recently, I actually talked about a little bit in the presentation and that is the Omar Ibn Said autobiography, and that's because I did something for that that is unusual. One of the issues that we foresaw with the use and handling of the autobiography, which was quite fragile, was we knew that there would be a huge amount of interest in this, and we wanted to give as many people, who had an interest, the ability to look at this really fantastic example and -- but we [inaudible] the original item couldn't withhold a great deal of handling. So, I made a facsimile copy, and that involved, which is not something that conservators normally do, it was pretty unusual, and it involves choosing the right kind of paper that had the same kind of feel to it for both the text paper and the cover and printing it and then cutting it to size. And now, looking at those two, side by side, they look so very similar, and it means that researchers can come, and they can use the facsimile and have the real sense of what it's like to hold that particular item in their hands, but kind of save the original from the excessive handling that it might receive. >> Amelia Parks: Thank you. How would you recognize an adhesive binding book that is a quality product that may last an entire lifetime or more? >> Jon Sweitzer-Lamme: I don't want to directly sort of like -- I can't give you direct answers with that. You know, each book is different, each publisher is different, each type of adhesive is different, but in general, if you're looking at a book and you -- it feels sort of it feels less flexible and more crackly as you open it, that is -- that's a, you know, a red flag. But unfortunately, many books were not intended to last for lifetimes and lifetimes, and one of the benefits of adhesive binding is that you can put a book in someone's hands for very, very little money, and we don't have to have -- not every book has to last every user for centuries and centuries. Of course, the challenge is that sometimes that user is the Library of Congress, in which case it does need to last centuries and centuries but yeah. >> Andrew Robb: Yeah. I think another aspect to that is that depending on how you care for something and where you store it and how you house it are ways that you can make something last a long time, and it's one of the things that we think about in all of the things we do here. How do we take something that's fragile and make it last for as long as it can? So, one of the things you can do if you have a fragile book, like many 19th century family bibles are are made out of materials that could be better, is put it into a box, and a lot of archival companies will sell you a box that can be custom-made for -- to the sizes of your bible, in this case, and having things in protective enclosures is really important and keeping them in a place that, for example, you're comfortable, as opposed to your basement or your attic, will really go a long way to making something last longer, and obviously, handling as an issue, as we've described. But you can make something last a long time, even if it's fragile. You just have to be careful. >> Amelia Parks: Thank you. For someone who is interested in the evolution of scribal scripts or script faces from the earliest styles, does the LoC offer any classes or online resources? >> Shelly Smith: That is a great question. I think I would have to look into that some more and see if we could answer that question through an email. So, if you want to send that to the Ask a Librarian, that'll get funneled to us, and we will find that out. It doesn't sound very familiar to me. It sounds quite specific, and it would likely be through rare books and special collections, and it would be more likely that we'd have a guest speaker come in to talk about some collections that we have in the Library than it would be a class in particular about how to differentiate between calligraphic styles or things like that. But I'll look into it and answer. >> Amelia Parks: Can you talk briefly about how the pandemic has changed your daily job? >> Andrew Robb: Can I start? >> Amelia Parks: Sure, absolutely. >> Andrew Robb: One of the biggest challenges for us that work with collections that are caring for them is that our access to those collections has been reduced, because we don't have as many people on site at the same time, and our ability then to meet with our colleagues in those divisions is also harder. So, actually one of the biggest ongoing challenges is just scheduling our meetings with people, so that we can talk about what we want to do, we can get access to the collections, and we can work together. It's hard to do a hybrid virtual and on site project. It's a real challenge, but we're getting much better at it. >> Shelly Smith: And I would say that one of the great benefits that we got from spending some time at home, if we could find any benefit at all to that, is actually right here on the table in front of everyone, in front of us is that, because the conservators had to -- had the luxury of being able to do more research or professional development, they actually made models of historic binding structures in their home studios. And by having the time to do that while working from home, which it's it's very hard to find that time when working on site, we benefited by having all of these fantastic models made that we'll get to use to refer to in the future. >> Amelia Parks: All right. We have one here. Gutenberg may have automated the printing of book pages, but how did the automation of the rest of the steps to complete the book happen? >> Jon Sweitzer-Lamme: So, the goal -- so if you watch -- you look at the production of books between 1800 1900, it becomes an almost entire -- goes from almost entirely handmade to almost entirely machine made over that century. A book in 1800 was not made all that differently from a book in 1455, and the process of making books more cheaply available was the process of taking people's hands off of them and allowing them to run through machines instead. So, there was machine made paper. There was sort of printing on roles instead of page by page. There was machine sewing machines, which -- and then the final step was really the casing, which allowed you to not actually touch the book at all, when -- to even to put it back together [inaudible]. >> Shelly Smith: Making the case separately from the text block and then and then bringing them together at the end, yeah, yep. >> Andrew Robb: I mean, one of the things that makes our collection so amazing to be around is they really are the history of the technology of all of these formats. So, photographs have a very similar [inaudible] not as long a time period, but from 1839 until now, there's just been an enormous amount of change, and because we have such large and expansive collections, you really can see the history of that technology in our collections. And particularly, as conservators, we really have to know that history, because it impacts how we make the decisions in terms of what we need to do to care for these items. >> Amelia Parks: All right, thank you. I think we have time for one more question, and I'm not 100% sure that this is going to be easy to answer live, but it could be interesting to compare it to the early processes of making paper. So, could the revival of making paper from cloth be a way to help limit the amount of fabric going to landfills or would it still be too labor intensive to keep up with consumer demands? >> Shelly Smith: That is fascinating. I don't know if we can answer that question but-- >> Andrew Robb: Well, I'll start. One of the things we do here is we buy a lot of preservation supplies that meet our different kinds of specifications for caring for our collections, and it is without a doubt that various kinds of cotton and other textile materials make a better kind of paper. I would say, like so many things, this really isn't a matter of how to do it. It's how much it costs and that if you want something to be inexpensive, then you start having these trade-offs. So, it's really a series of trade-offs. Certainly, it could be done, but recycling materials is challenging and expensive. >> Shelly Smith: Even the paper making process of making paper from wood, that becoming an alkaline process that resulted in more permanent paper, was not done to make more permanent paper. It was done, because it was a cheaper process than the original process was. All right, well, it looks like our time is up, and thank you for your excellent, excellent questions. If you didn't get a chance to ask your question or if you have very specific questions about preservation or conservation, please use the Library's Ask a Librarian service to connect to a specialist. That link is posted in the chat, and thank you so much for joining us today, and please enjoy the rest of the National Book Festival. [ Music ]