Molly Eckel '12 in New York City, Summer 2011
I call myself the book doctor. I spent the summer with a scalpel in hand, suturing pamphlets back together with linen thread and patching boo-boos with Japanese tissue. Maybe I didn’t draw blood (other than my own, on rare occasions where the needle refused to cooperate), but I certainly performed surgeries and saved some books’ lives.
There is irony in this. Since my debut at the Book Arts Lab as a first-year, I have been learning how to build books from the board up, not how to deconstruct them. On the job as a Conservation Intern at the Frick Art Reference Library, I learned to manipulate a familiar set of tools and materials – bone folders, board shears, paste, PVA,
curved needles, linen tapes, blades, and Japanese tissue – to stabilize books, which demands adherence to a new set of ethical principles. In creation, the artist is king; in conservation, the object rules. As a conservator, I planned and executed a customized
treatment for each book. Was it printed on sturdy cotton-rag or brittle wood pulp paper? What evidence remains of its original binding structure? How often is this book likely to be used by researchers? Like patients, no two books were prescribed the same treatment.
I rest easy knowing that the objects under my care this summer are at peace in flat files in the vault, snug in custom enclosures, and reshelved in clean mylar jackets, waiting for researchers to call upon them. They’ll be ready.
Molly Eckel ’12 is an art history major and a student employee in the Conservation Facility in Clapp Library.