This year’s Friends of the Library’s annual workshop in the Book Arts Lab, led by program director Katherine Ruffin, focused on exposed spine hardcover journals, a form of bookbinding in which the sewing that connects the groupings of pages is never covered.
Each participant sewed a blank journal, composed of nine groupings, called signatures or sections, of four pieces of paper folded in half. Each book had seventy-two pages in all.
Folding signatures.
Using a herringbone stitch over linen tapes provided stability to the binding: the herringbone pattern linked each signature to the stitching below, and tapes underneath the stitching help connect all the signatures to each other and ultimately to the cover of the journal as well.
Once all the signatures were sewn together, we covered bookboard with deaccessioned United States Geological Survey maps; the minutiae of their topography and highways looked almost abstract, out of geographical context. All of the paper and boards used in each journal, including the maps, were cut with the same grain alignment: the fibers are lined up in the same direction, which allows each component of the book to move and settle over time in harmony. Finally, in a high-stakes moment, the covered boards were glued directly onto the first and last pages in each journal.
The text of this entry was written by Genevieve Goldleaf ’12, a double major in Medieval and Renaissance Studies and Environmental Studies and a student employee in the Book Arts Lab.
The photos were taken by Hannah Stevens, MLIS Student at Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science, intern in the Archives, Wellesley College, Spring 2012.