Guidelines for the conservation of leather and parchment bookbindings

This publication is a translated and revised edition of the Richtlijnen voor de conservering van leren en perkamenten boekbanden issued in 1995 by the KB and the Central Research Laboratory for Objects of Art and Science (since April 1997: Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (ICN)).

The guidelines set out in this publication, make it possible to classify types of damage to bookbindings. Also described are the various stages of actual conservation treatment which can be determined. Some chapters are devoted to related subjects, explaining in more general terms the problems involved in bookbinding conservation.

Contents

• Foreword
  
• Acknowledgements
  
• Introduction and summary
  

1. Overview of leather and parchment manufacture
2. Concise survey of conservation treatments
3. Causes and phenomena of leather and parchment decay
4. Damage categories and treatment
5. Procedures and formulas for the conservation of leather bookbindings and the treatment of specific kinds of damage
6. Procedures and formulas for the conservation of parchment bookbindings
7. Analytical tests
8. Documentation
9. Storage and handling
10. List of formulas
11. Concise bibliography