Preservation @ ZSR blog

I had the opportunity to learn a 14th century binding style in a workshop Oct 23-26. Using signatures that were sewn over alum-tawed leather thongs, we made a cover for this binding from calfskin vellum. Vellum is a term that is often interchangeable with parchment, but usually parchment refers to goat/sheepskin and vellum to calfskin. Vellum was used for many things, including covers for texts. After centuries of use, it came to replace papyrus as the preferred writing surface. Only when paper became readily available was vellum replaced for writing and printing purposes.

John S. Walker, who volunteered at ZSR from 2000-2003 in Preservation and passed away in 2005, has donated his books on Japan to the Z. Smith Reynolds Library. A few weeks back, I drove to his home and picked up many boxes of books. Charles Bombeld helped sort through and accept approximately 80 of these titles on Japan. On October, 16, Charles and I took the remaining books to Dr. David Phillips in the East Asian Studies Department in Carswell Hall. These titles will help strengthen the ZSR collection in East Asian Studies.