Every treatment of a historic object must be documented!
Even long after the restoration and/or conservation treatment has been carried out, additional information, such as follow-up treatment in the form of repeated buffering, may be added to the documention / report. There are several way to deal with this documentation. In the KB such documentation / reports are stored separately from the books they refer to. Restoration reports are numbered consecutively and a concordance record is kept of the report's number and the shelf-mark of the relevant book. The advantage of this system is that the latest restoration reports, for instance from the past year, are readily available. The report number is noted in pencil, always in the same place, at the back of each book treated. The best place for this is the bottom righthand corner of the back board or the last blank page.
A report may deal with findings and treatments in as much detail as is deemed desirable. If we restrict ourselves to the conservation of bindings, the following points can be considered for inclusion:

  1. The (collection) shelf-mark/file number
  2. The kind of covering material used in the bookbinding
  3. Any earlier treatments the binding has undergone (if they can be traced)
  4. The result(s) of any analytical research
  5. The methods applied
  6. The materials (agents) used
  7. Special details, if any
  8. Name of the conservator
  9. Date of treatment

These (minimum) data may be useful for later research.

For various reasons reports may get lost or not be immediately available, or not be made at all. It is therefore important to keep some record of a restoration or conservation treatment in the book itself. This is perhaps particularly relevant to the conservation of bindings, because the treatment of the covering material will usually not be visible. One option is to write (in pencil) the bare mimimum of data in the book itself. This, too, is best done in the bottom righthand corner of the back board or the last blank page. (It goes without saying that the notation should not be written in so large or conspicuous a hand as to leave an impression of carelessness. Data can also be recorded in the form of an agreed code.
Minimum data might be:

  1. Whether ammonia and/or a buffer has been used
  2. Which emulsion or dressing formula has been used
  3. Date of treatment

As a rule private owners of books and antiquarian booksellers are not always aware of the importance of this kind of documentation. It is therefore the task of the people carrying out the conservation treatment of bookbindings on behalf of this group of book owners, to point out the importance of (minimum) documentation.