Kristi Westberg's Conservation Portfolio: Derry Book 3

Attorney General (For Ireland) V Irish Society & Others is a compilation of court documents dating from 1891. On receipt it was discovered that the book was made up of several pamphlets sewn together at some point into one volume. Prior to conservation the volume was in poor condition with the sewing failing, leather covering broken down as well as poor attachment of textblock to case.

Conservation began with the textblock. The old adhesive was removed from the spine to make way for sewing repairs. The first three, last three and three sections in the center of the textblock were re-sewn around three new linen tapes to stabilize the sewing and provide a new attachment point to the case. Once sewing repair was complete a new Japanese paper spine lining was pasted on the spine along with a handmade paper lining for added support.

To repair the case I decided to give the binding a new cloth reback. Cloth was chosen over leather as the original leather was of poor quality, making a cloth reback more economical and sympathetic to the binding. The original spine was removed and a couple millimeters of the cover leather was removed to make way for the cloth reback. Next the boards were reattached by pasting the new linen tapes and Japanese paper flange into a slot in the cover boards. Finally the new cloth spine was attached under the lifted leather on the cover boards and turned in. The original spine was placed in an envelope for safe keeping and a box was made for the book.

It should be noted that the original binding had a leather yap around the three edges of each board. The majority of this overhanging leather was missing, leaving several areas of ragged leather. It was decided to turn-in this leather and adhere it to the inside of the boards using paste. The change in the binding was noted in the conservation report.