Scaleboard Bindings
Lecture from Julia Miller
North Bennet Street School, Boston
This lecture is free and open to the public and is co-sponsored by the New England Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers and North Bennet Street School. Please register online at nbss.edu so we can prepare an appropriate space for the number attending.
Drawing from her study of 350 scaleboard bindings in library collections, Julia Miller explores the variety of structural elements and material combinations used on American imprints bound in scaleboard.
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). The material was incorporated into American bindings as early as the 1680s (and probably earlier) and was used through the 1840s. Scaleboard was used in place of paste or pulpboard long after those materials were widely available in America and Boston is considered the center of early scaleboard/scabbard use based on the number of Boston imprints that survive in scaleboard bindings. Through her research and presentations, Julia aims to increase awareness of these bindings and increase the identification and description of these bindings in research collection cataloguing.
Introduction to Scaleboard
A hands-on seminar with Julia Miller
Friday and Saturday, April 27-28, 2012
North Bennet Street School, Boston
Please register online at nbss.edu.
The first day of the workshop focuses on building a solid understanding of the variety of structural elements encountered in collections of scaleboard bindings. The day includes a presentation by the instructor, hands-on examination of historical binding examples, discussion and descriptions done by students in teams. During the bench portion of the workshop, students create a cutaway model of a full leather scaleboard binding. Students also create a set of structure and material samplers to use as aids when working with Americana collections.
