Bound & Mutilated

Currently, I'm working two jobs. One is actually an internship [read: unpaid] at the Library of Congress, which might not "count" as a job, and the other is a job job at a commercial bindery. But what, pray tell, do I actually do at said jobs? I'm so glad you asked, because I'magonnatellya....


BOUND


You may or may not have noticed a paucity of bookbinding establishments in the last century or so. If you've never paused to consider how people used to put books together prior to the advent of large publishing houses and their machine made issue, you might not be familiar with the nuances of binding as a craft. At any rate, it used to be that a printer would print a manuscript and then, once purchased, one would give the manuscript to a binder and it would be bound accordingly [that's a very rough summary, but enough to suffice for now]. That's not how it's done these days, yet binderies still exist.

View of the workshop from the back corner

I started work at the bindery around the end of August. They were in dire need of a foil stamper and, though I had almost zero experience as such, my boss was intrigued enough about my experience with binding to give me a chance to learn. I work on an old Kwikprint with a platen that never stays square. There's another, newer Kwikprint that needed a new Robotemp to function. Once the part was ordered, I rewired the thing and it's a much friendlier beast than the other. We also have a Kensol in the shop, but I'm intimidated and haven't made much headway on learning to use it.


There's a learning curve to any job, but not all learning curves involve second degree burns. My hands are looking a bit rough these days....

Burns still healing after weeks

The many facets of expertise that go into making a books inspires me most about binding: paper making, sewing, cord fibers, leather types and tanning, metal furnishings, woodworking, and typeface and ink. It goes on and on, and endless pageant of skills and steps to master or dissect. And that's without even considering content!


Sadly, not all content is created equal. A good deal of the business at the bindery centers around producing case-bound editions of the voluminous minutes of some trade association committee or another. The other large chunk of business relates mainly to the refurbishment of old family bibles.  All of the work comes with its own interesting challenges and frustrations, however, and I don't mean to sound to lofty about what constitutes a worthy effort.

Ta-da! Ain't she a beaut?

Recently, I was asked to tend to an Eastern European [Cyrillic alphabet, but pretty sure not Russian] pictorial history of the Great War. It was an unwieldy thing, long and heavy and nearly 400 pages. The photos were printed on a very pulpy paper and nearly all the sewing holes were blown. The text was on an entirely different paper, sturdier but obviously on the way to serious embrittlement due to acidic content. It had been sewn on a multitude of tapes and overzealously slathered with hide glue which seeped through many of the sewing holes. There were tears and tattered corners, too. In short, it was a nightmare. But what a thrill! It was the first time I had attempted to restore a book that wasn't something I picked up at a used bookstore on which to practice.


MUTILATED


The Library of Congress runs a pretty tight ship. A behemoth, laggard ship to be sure, but tight nonetheless. Security checks at every entrance scan your belongings, and the cloakrooms tuck them away. Patrons clutch clear plastic baggies that hold the few acceptable items they may bring into the reading rooms. As an employee/intern, I go through the same security checks every time I enter or exit the buildings. However, I don't have to turn in my belongings.


The security at the Library makes me wonder about the libraries in ancient Babylonia or Persia or Alexandria. How did they protect their collections? The guards at the Library aren't expecting weapons or bombs, I'm sure, though the procedures act as a screen for those things, too. Exacto knives and other instruments for the quick removal or concealment of valuable documents, prints, etc. are the target contraband. So, in those ancient libraries, did they frisk your toga, or what?


Valuable collections will always be at risk for theft, which brings me to the topic of mutilation. When an especially beautiful print or lithograph is removed from a book, the thief usually has little regard for the rest of the book unless there are other materials they wish to extract from it. The book subjected to such brutality often looks like a domestic violence victim. Parts loose and hanging off, deep cuts into surrounding pages, the binding or stitches busted.


A couple of months ago, my supervisor tasked me with the design and execution of a survey of a collection of mutilated books. These books have sat in a locked cage deep in the stacks for, no joke, about 20 years. Very few people have access to these items, and so they've collected dust seven layers thick. The survey is meant to assess the scope of damage for each item, measure them for storage in a special facility, and give a recommendation about what to do with the poor dears.


Here's a little blurb of something I wrote while contemplating my charges that may inform and amuse:


"Sometimes bad things happen to good books. Or, if not good, then at least innocent. This is not the average wear-and-tear dilapidation all tomes are privy to while facing down the ages upon the shelf. Mutilation is an accidental or intentional act that renders the book incomplete or permanently unusable. They get jammed in conveyer belts, vandalized or even gutted by rogue patrons. Yes, it’s a dangerous life, to be a book. They risk it all in the name of knowledge and, though they have already paid a heavy price, their service does not end there. Here at the library, there exists a kind of purgatory for such casualties. In this knotty labyrinth, folded in its dim recesses, they bear a vast burden. What if their sister copy[s] were lost? What if every other copy like it was somehow wiped off the face of the earth? Here, beneath a tundra of dust, lies the last testament to the author/poet/artist/philosopher—long since harvest of the loamy denizens of earth. Though their spines are broken, their leather rotting and their stitches bust—though irreparably mangled by the cruel vagaries of fate, that same fate may afford them a final glory: as witnesses to the churning eons of history, silent monuments of infinite jest."


That bit about "rogue patrons" is only partly true. The fuller and scarier truth is that a lot of these crimes were perpetrated by people working at the Library. The FBI investigated several of the more valuable holdings damaged in this way and discovered "gutting and mailing" stations in the stacks. This was no E. Forbes Smiley, but an inside job! 


My personal feelings about this may not need statement. Books are sacred, and violating our cultural heritage is sacrilege. As a friend/colleague of mine pointed out, however, my project is a unique opportunity to see a very concentrated selection of books with valuable content. These items have been pre-selected for their beauty or desirability. Most, as might be assumed, come from the Prints & Photographs division. It is as much the greedy eye as the greedy pocket that led to this destruction. 


I get to handle each and every broken piece. It is a sad and wonderful task. I am often awed by what I see. My eye, like all human eyes, is greedy, too. I spend a great deal of my time working on this survey, sitting [usually] alone in a cold, locked cage with thousands of mutilated books. We call it the Mutilated Cage. Sounds like a room in an asylum or a post-apocalyptic prison cell for slave-fighters cum "Mad Max", right? No one screams or bleeds in this cage, though. It's incredibly, deafeningly quiet. 


This is a blog about books and bookbinding and grad school and dreams and all of that, yes. But it's really a blog about me and how those things relate to me. I can't think of a more appropriate assignment for me, personally, than this Mutilated Collection survey. Who better to counsel an amputee than a fellow amputee? We all have checkpoints, we scan the people and their belongings before we allow them into our lives. We decide who has what level of access to particular rooms of our psyche. We know suspicious behavior when we see it. The truth is that, usually, the worst damage that occurs is from an inside job.