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Craig Preservation Lab

The rewards of our work

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This week we have been reflecting on our role as caretakers.

Book conservator's bench with treatment in process.

The work we do with our hands in conservation is rewarding — in and of itself. We know it’s not for everyone. But those of us who find the careful, picky, repetitive work satisfying and meditative are thankful that we found our way to this profession. Preserving our intellectual and cultural heritage supports the work of students and scholars today as well as those yet to be born. So our work sustains us — no matter what else is happening around us — because we recognize its positive impact on society.

Despite our seriousness of purpose, every so often we do indulge in something fun! This month at the arts and humanities festival at IU known as First Thursday, we shared the historical technique of making paste paper. Everyone had fun and attendees learned a little something about bookbinding craft.

Paste paper is sort of a sophisticated form of finger painting. Bookbinders in 17th and 18h-century Germany made their own paste papers to use in the books they were binding, either for the end papers or the cover material.

Endpapers with swirls of red, gold, and purple inside a book from the IU Libraries.
Paste paper end paper in an IU Libraries book
Blue end papers of a book in the IU Libraries with a ribbony wave pattern.
Paste paper end paper in an IU Libraries book
5 books in the IU Libraries with decorative paste-paper covers or end papers.

We put aside our scalpels, tweezers, and rulers one day recently to make paste papers in advance of First Thursday. First we made paste from cake flour, then added acrylic paint in a variety of colors.

Containers of paste with acrylic paints in various bright hues added
Pigments are added to a thick paste, often made from flour, spread on wet paper, and manipulated while wet with tools to create a design or pattern.
Implements for manipulating the wet colors during paste-paper making
Almost any tool can be used – combs, pieces of cardboard, kitchen implements, sponges, bubble wrap, or fingers. And fish, apparently.
Three people making paste paper in the IU Libraries Preservation Department
We spent an afternoon and made about 50 large sheets of paste paper.
Finished paste papers laid out on a large work table
After the papers dried, we pressed them flat and cut them into smaller pieces to use as covers for little blank books.
Two people demonstrating how to make paste paper with two IU students observing
At First Thursday in the IU Auditorium, we demonstrated the messy process of making paste paper. We covered the floor with plastic sheeting!
People learning to make small booklets by sewing with needle and thread, and others selecting bookmarks made from paste paper.
At another table, we taught people how to make small booklets by sewing the pages and covers together with needle and thread. The hardest part was choosing which paste-paper cover to use.
People trying their hands at sewing blank booklets, with an array of brightly colored covers spread out on the table along with tools.

Fun was had, which is its own reward.

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