Monday, July 13, 2009

Bookbinding and Bytes



Visitors to our shop say it looks like something out of a movie or a Dickens novel: browns and blacks, old books and cast-iron machinery, the smell of leather and book dust. Most of our work is done the old-fashioned way using tools and techniques that Charles Dickens could have described. Not because we're distrustful of the new and shiny; there's simply no other way to do the careful sorts of work required by restoration and fine binding. Occasionally, a new tool comes along that becomes an important addition to our shop. In this case, it even uses electricity. Welcome the computer!

This important early edition of a Madame Curie work arrived in its original paper wraps with portions of the spine and covers missing. We scanned the covers, used digital magic to fill in the missing portions, and output on a similar paper. Finally, a perfect color match was achieved with the airbrush (another modern tool). Preserving Yesterday's Treasures with Today's Technology... sounds like an ad agency blurb, but in this case it's true!

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