Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Conservation Of Books: Prescription For Collectors, Susan Rainey

The Courier

My month in Chicago changed all this considerably by increasing my knowledge of book and non-book materials. There we discussed the nature of these materials, criteria for excellence both singly and in combination with each other, and approaches to restoration and prevention of further deterioration. Book conservation is a relatively recent development in the larger field of conservation, but the problem of deterioration is as old as the earliest papyrus. As it applies to materials of our own time, it is related to the three major physical elements of the book: its paper, its cover and its structure.