Book Production During Wartime

Late this summer Musket to Machine Gun, by A.M. Low, arrived in the lab for repair.

As I opened it up to assess the damage, I noticed this imprint:

The book, published in 1942 by Hutchinson & Co. in England, was subject to the production standards in place there during the Second World War. Similar standards to the ones in England existed in the United States. Among the limited goods here in the U.S. were the raw materials for book production—paper, paperboard, and hide glue. A variety of conditions contributed to this, including labor shortages in the wood industry and the consumption of pre-war inventories.* Books published during the war years accommodated the limitations in raw material as evidenced in this volume.

The printing appears rather dense with narrow margins, and there is no endpaper in the back of the volume, both signs of thriftiness. Another possible austerity measure shows in the book’s construction:

The size of the lining mull is a third of the height of the book, considerably shorter than usual. Even with its wartime production, this book isn’t in terrible condition relative to the book repairs we see. With some consolidation, a new spine, and some interior hinges it will be back on the shelf in no time.

* For more information on the U.S. War Production Board see, Industrial mobilization for war, history of the War Production Board and predecessor agencies, 1940-1945. v. 1. Program and administration

Written by Stephanie Wolff.

Dear Loyal Readers

You have come to expect a fresh and informative blog post every Tuesday morning from the members of Preservation Services and we thank you for your support. We use the blog to share information about our work and are delighted you find it worth your time to visit. However, we are finding it difficult to keep up with our weekly deadline and complete preservation projects so that we have something to report to you, our loyal readers. After careful consideration of the time needed to support a weekly blog post we have decided that effective November 20 we will move to a bi-weekly schedule.

Thank you for your support and we hope you will continue to visit our blog.

Very cordially,

The staff of Preservation Services

Visiting Conservator

At the end of September we had the great fortune to host conservator Chiara Minardi from Parma, Italy. Her specialty is working with vellum and executing comprehensive conservation work on texts bound in vellum. Rauner Special Collections Library had recently purchased a volume where the vellum boards were splaying and the pages were previously repaired. This was the perfect item to focus a workshop around. (And it happened to be an Italian book!)

Showing previous repair

One of my favorite parts of the workshop was learning how she washes and treats paper. Once it has soaked in the water to loosen the dirt and soften any old repairs, the previously repaired area is lifted out of the water and supported on a plexi board. It can then be lifted away using methylcellulose to further soften the patch.

Once the old paper is removed the area is once again covered in methylcellulose to soften the glue residue. A brush is used to sweep away any remaining adhesive.

For all steps of treatment the primary adhesive used is methylcellulose. It is also used for adhering, as well as cleaning and softening.

The methylcellulose is brushed onto the wet paper in order to line the page.

A very thin tissue is laid down with the help of a ruler.

Checking to make sure it is well-adhered.

Going over some areas with additional methylcellulose.

Lifting the page.

Placing between remay and blotters.

The page is left under light weights overnight.

This is just one of the treatments we did during the workshop. I will report more in my next post.

Written by Deborah Howe.