Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Digital Production Unit Update

Here is a sample of some of the projects that the Library Digital Production Unit has been working on in recent days.


Dartmouth College Photographic Files:



This long term, ongoing project digitizes a large collection of photographs from the Rauner Special Collections Library. To date we have scanned approximately 17,000 photographs. The physical collection is currently housed in file cabinets in Rauner and is a "diverse collection of approximately 80,000 photographs related to Dartmouth College, Hanover and the surrounding area. Images date from the early years of photography (ca. 1850s) to the present and include images of nearly all aspects of Dartmouth College life".



Dartmouth Winter Carnival Posters

A collection of 91 Dartmouth Winter Carnival Posters dating back to 1911 when the Carnival began. New posters are added to the collection as they are available in the Rauner Special Collections Library. Recently we scanned the posters from 2009 to 2013 on our new reprographic system.



Manuscripts Relating to Samson Occom and Eleazar 
Wheelock's Early Indian Students





The letters and other writings of Samson Occom, an important figure in the founding of Dartmouth College. "The manuscripts, circa 1743-1794, document Occom's early student life under Wheelock's tutelage, his life as a minister at Montauk and Mohegan, his trip to England to raise money for what would become Dartmouth College, as well as personal reflections on his life as an educated Indian in Colonial America." This project is nearing completion. Most of our recent work involves correcting problems with the scanned images when they are discovered.



Sino Viet Ritual Texts





These three unique manuscripts of Buddhist-Taoist rituals in classical Chinese and Vietnamese Nom date back to 1924. They contain practical Buddhist-Taoist rituals on death, healing and natural disasters. We have completed scanning these manuscripts and we are in a post-production phase in preparation for them to be uploaded to the Dartmouth Digital Collections website. 



Digital Transitions DT RG3040 Reprographic System




In December the Dartmouth Digital Program purchased a highend reprographic system housed in the Digital Production Unit. The system includes a large copy stand, a custom made camera with a Phase One digital back, a lighting system and few other bells and whistles. To date we have used the camera to photograph Dartmouth Winter Carnival Posters from the last five years. And we are in the process of incorporating the system into out Photo Files and Dartmouth Dissertations workflows. 


To see all of our digital collection visit: Dartmouth Digital Collections at http://www.dartmouth.edu/~library/digital/collections/index.html


by William B. Ghezzi




Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Book Arts: "Hiding in Plain Sight"

Early in January Dartmouth's student newspaper, "The Dartmouth" featured the Book Arts Workshop in an article that does a wonderful job describing who we are and what we are about.  The complete article, "Behind the Curtain: Workshop hides resources in plain sight" may be found here.

Barb Sagraves, Head, Preservation Services 

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Print a Letterpress Winter Carnival Poster!

Join the fun! 


Drop in anytime on Friday, Feb. 7th, 
from 12:00pm to 3:00pm 
and print your very own 
Winter Carnival Poster!


We will be set up in the hallway outside of Baker 25. 
No registration required.


Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Dissecting the Dissected

One of the most interesting items I’ve worked on is our copy of:

Essai d'anatomie, en tableaux imprimé , qui représentent au naturel tous les muscles de la face, du col, de la tête, de la langue et du larinx; d'après les parties disséquées et préparées, par Duverney, comprenent huit grandes planches, dessinées, peintes, gravées et imprimées en couleur et grandeur naturelles, par Gautier, avec des tables qui expliquent les planches
Paris, Gautier, 1745; call number: Rare Book QM 535 .G377

A title as long as the book is large!

Below is one of the more well-known images, sometimes referred to as the flayed angel.
(Rauner Blog Post  and info on Gautier.)
Anatomy volumes as this were used for teaching, thus their large size, so students could see them while dissecting cadavers. In fact while working on this volume there were stains that I would identify as blood stains. The problem with this volume was that it had been rebound perhaps in the late 50’s or early 60’s and had been over sewn, so that the pages didn’t open flat and the foldout illustrations were difficult to view. So the first task at hand was to “dissect” it.





Because of the large size, I jerry rigged a press out of boards and c-clamps in order to clean the spine. Once the old adhesive was removed I was able to get at the pages and separate them


 section by section.


Here you can see the evidence of the over sewing.


I then proceeded to mend the folds with a strong japanese tissue. 
Here, half of the pages are finished being mended.


Once the folds were mended it was time to sew. This was a bit tricky but with the aid of a support this went smoothly. I decided to sew the signatures onto frayed cords, which could be used later to reattach the cover.


Inside support to hold open the folio.

The endsheets from the earlier binding were machine made and very acidic, 
so I made some beautiful new endsheets from the Delphi paper made 
at Twin Rocker in Brookston, Indiana. The weight and 
color were perfect and I created


a split board style to help reattach the covers.


The covers were still in good condition and thick so all I did was remove the old paper paste downs. There was a natural split in the boards at the hinge edge, so I utilized this to my advantage to insert the tabs from the endsheets.



Once again I had to devise a plan for pressing the attachment of the 
boards as the book couldn’t go into a press due 
to the various sizes of plates and text.



Luckily I had a carpenter friend who provided me with some thick planks which I could put a lot of pressure on with the c-clamps. This was needed to insure that the tabs and split were well adhered. Once the boards were firmly in place I pasted down the interior hinge onto the covers and then a doublure.



Opening of the book with attached boards but before the spine is reattached.



Included in this volume is a life size figure that has a tri-fold. This plate was very damaged with one of the sections completely detached (split at the knees). I reconstituted the fold out with a laminate of linen and japanese tissue and did some minor in-filling with japanese tissue and
added slight bit of color touch up but not much.



Verso of repair.


Because this was such a large plate and quite dynamic I designed a tab and slotted hinge so
that it could be removed when needed for easier viewing. This was somewhat successful
but it is a bit tricky to attach and remove
Tab and slot.


The spine material is a heavy canvas colored with acrylic to match the original leather. Inserts of cord were placed that the head and tail of the turn-ins for extra support and an aesthetic touch.
Finished volume.


My new friend!

Written by Deborah Howe