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This Year's Annual Meeting
Indianapolis, Indiana
April 29 - May 1, 2011
Mark your calendars for the Guild of Book Workers Midwest Chapter Annual Meeting, to be held on April 29-May 1, 2011, in Indianapolis, IN.
The main portion of our programming will include a lecture and workshop on American scaleboard bindings (see details below) taught by Julia Miller, author of the recently published book entitled Books Will Speak Plain: a handbook for identifying and describing historical bindings, published by The Legacy Press. Ms. Miller has an MA in Archival Administration and was previously a senior conservator at the University of Michigan Conservation & Book Repair Lab (as well as a co-founder of the Midwest chapter of GBW!). Ms. Miller continues to work in private practice and regularly teaches bench workshops around the country, primarily focusing on early book structures.
The annual meeting in Indianapolis will consist of tours of sites of local interest as well as several opportunities to socialize with colleagues and Guild members. We are currently planning for Ms. Miller to offer an evening lecture on Friday (location to be determined) concerning the history of scaleboard bindings based on her fellow- ship research on these bindings in the collection of The Library Company in Philadelphia as well as a full-day workshop on Saturday at the Herron School of Art and Design.
Plans and details are still formulating with announcements to be sent out at a later date. We hope to see you in Indianapolis this spring!
American scaleboard bindings workshop details
Scaleboard, also known as scabbard, is thin wood that was used for bindings in Europe and Britain until around 1600, and much less so thereafter; scaleboard was used in America for bindings from at least the 1680s or earlier, and the thin wood covers continued in use until at least the 1840s. Scaleboard was used in place of paste or pulpboard long after those materials were widely available in America, and we will explore that question of why this was so in the workshop.
We will make two text blocks, one sewn and one stabbed; we will cover the sewn text block model with full leather and the stabbed binding with quarter leather with paper sides. Time permitting, we will create a sampler text block showing the different support materials used for stab and sewn scaleboard bindings as well as discuss and possibly create a plaquette(s) showing different blind tooling styles used on early full-leather scaleboard bindings.
This workshop does not require leather-paring skill.
Discussion handouts including a reading list on the history of early American binding and histor- ical examples of scaleboard bindings that can be studied and photographed by participants will support the bench experience.
For further information or to enroll email: Laura Larkin at llarkin [at] illinois [dot] edu