Kenneth Spencer Research Library

Sometimes deterioration can be a useful tool for discovering how a book was made. This example, in poor condition, allows us to see how the book’s boards were constructed. Rather than one piece of wood or paperboard, the boards are made from layers of stiff paper glued together with starch paste. Each board is comprised of twelve layers of “printer’s waste,” or discarded pages from other books available for use by the bookbinder. The printed pages used were printed in both black and red ink, probably dating from a 15th century bible.

Andreas Fabricius. Chemnicensis. [Germany?, 1549?]. [Bound with printed work: Joachim Camerius, 1500-1574 . Capita pietatis et religionis Christianae versibus Graecis comprehensa ad institutionem puerilem […], Lipsiae: V. Papa, 1547]. Call number: MS B38. Left: binding open to see the book’s insides; Right: title page for the manuscript; Bottom: book open to show the layers of board.  Click images to enlarge.

The tooled pigskin cover is detached, allowing us to see how the book was sewn on three pairs of linen cords. The cord ends were frayed out and glued to the outside of the “boards.” Linen cords were used as a core to sew on decorative endbands at the head and tail (top and bottom) of the spine.

Left: the book’s tooled pigskin cover; Right: detail of frayed cords.  Click images to enlarge.

The text of this book is a combination of printed and manuscript pages. The subject appears to be a handbook of logic, grammar, and rhetoric. It is a true composite object!

Click on the thumbnails below for additional  images:

Whitney Baker
Head, Conservation Services

Note: For more detailed information regarding the contents of this volume, please see entry M115 in A Checklist of Medieval Manuscripts in the Department of Special Collections at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library (Revised edition, 1996), which is available in the library’s reading room.

Have you ever wondered what steps are involved in mounting an exhibit? We recently completed installation of “100 Years of Jayhawks: 1912-2012,” curated by University Archivist Becky Schulte, with assistance from Letha Johnson and Sherry Williams. The exhibit celebrates the evolution of the Jayhawk, the mascot of the University of Kansas, from the first, long-legged version drawn by Hank Maloy to the present design. This is the first exhibit to be mounted in a newly renovated space in Spencer, in the former location of the Special Collections reception area.

Becky Schulte retrieved many items from the stacks and determined the theme of each of the five cases. Assistant Conservator Roberta Woodrick and I covered the exhibit case bases with the cloth Becky had selected. Once the cases were ready, Becky laid out objects in the cases in rough configurations, determining the best location for each item while considering the flow of the exhibition “story.”

Initial layout of materials in the case. Click image to enlarge.

After items were placed in the cases, we constructed mounts for materials in order to elevate, highlight, and soundly support them during the course of the exhibit. For this exhibition we selected archival matboard and Volara polyethylene foam as mount materials, both of which are inert and will not chemically or physically damage objects on display.

University Archivist Becky Schulte positioning an item on matboard within the case.
Click image to enlarge.

Once the labels and mounts were finished, the Jayhawks were placed in the cases. We measured and determined safe lighting levels for the exhibition space to limit light exposure to objects on display.

Finished Product! The final version of one of the exhibition’s five display cases.
Click image to enlarge.

The exhibit will be on open through March and may be viewed during regular Kenneth Spencer Research Library Hours:  Monday-Friday, 9:00am-5:00pm, and (when regular classes are in session) Saturday 12:00pm-4:00pm . Please visit and let us know what you think!

For images from the exhibition’s opening celebration on Wednesday, December 5, please click on the thumbnails below.

Whitney Baker
Head, Conservation Services

In honor of the upcoming presidential election, we focus today on one form of political advertisement: the bumper sticker. First produced in the 1940s, mostly likely by Kansas City, Kansas screenprinter Forest P. Gill, bumper stickers gained prominence in the early 1950s to advertise tourist attractions, public safety initiatives, political campaigns, radio and television stations, and political and personal viewpoints. As ephemeral artifacts broadcasting historical and social events and trends, bumper stickers are widely collected by museums, archives, and libraries.

Spencer Research Library is fortunate to have a substantive collection of bumper stickers in the Kansas Collection, as part of the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements. This world-class collection was (and continues to be) shaped by Laird Wilcox, a former KU student and expert on right- and left-wing political groups from the early 1960s to the present.

For more information about the history of bumper stickers, see “Soapbox for the Automobile: Bumper sticker history, identification, and preservation”

Bumper stickers spanning the political spectrum from the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements.
Above the post text: Wilcox Sticker # 46, 17; below the post text: Wilcox Sticker # 165, 28,
39, 50, 81, 22, 71, 174,  42, 33, 64, 1, 180, 43, 27, 10, 83, 164. Click images to enlarge.

Whitney Baker
Head, Conservation Services

Former conservation student assistant Haley Trezise reports on how she met the challenge of safely housing a group of metal Jayhawks.

I could hear the individual metal pieces sliding around inside before I even opened the box containing the metal Jayhawk paraphernalia.  There was a small metal pendant set aside in an envelope; however, the rest of the items in the collection were awkwardly arranged at the bottom of a tall, slender box.  Projects like this challenged me to find or make appropriate housing for Spencer items.

The challenge: A note to the archivist and two of several metal Jayhawk items all to be housed together.
Spencer Library Call Number: RG 0/25

I worked as a conservation student employee and Museum Studies intern during my last two semesters at KU.  For one of my projects as an intern, I was asked to upgrade the housing for some metal Jayhawk paraphernalia.  The parameters: all material should stay together in one box, including the accompanying written documents.  I was provided a rather small, off-the-shelf box and told that all items should fit within that enclosure.

A new nest for metal Jayhawks.  Spencer Library Call Number: RG 0/25

After considering various arrangements for best placement, I used  plastazote foam, an inert (non-damaging) material that is easily shaped, to cut indentions for each object. I took a picture of the  proper place for each item and placed it, along with the written information, in a sleeve inside the lid of the box.  The image of what is stored in the box was also attached to the outside of the box so that the archivists can see what is inside without opening the lid.

Photos affixed to the exterior of the housing reveal at a glance the Jayhawk paraphernalia contained inside.
Spencer Library Call Number: RG 0/25. Click image to enlarge.

Haley Trezise
Former Conservation Student Assistant

The volume below contains a wonderful example of paste paper on its binding.  Paste paper is most associated with 16th- and 17th-century books from the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium. It was usually created in the bookbinding workshop for books that did not warrant the expense of marbled paper, a luxurious commodity.

Left: This 1815 volume from a run of the Spencer Library’s holdings for the periodical Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung has a binding that uses paste paper (Call Number: D3204, Vol. 107).  Right: a detail from the bottom right corner of the volume. Click images to enlarge.

Paste paper was created with starch paste—a staple of any bookbinding operation—and some sort of pigment. Often an implement was dragged through the paper, creating lines that look remarkably three-dimensional.  Once in a while you find a mark of the bookbinder left behind: a finger or thumbprint used to make flowers or other patterns.  There are many instructions for making paste paper, easily discoverable on the internet.

Paste paper details from the bindings of volumes in the Spencer Library’s collections. Top left: Tractatus optimus de arte bene moriendi (expanded version by Dominicus Capranica, d. 1458), Germany, 1456. (Call # MS D38). Top right: Saint Bonaventure’s Soliloquium , Germany, 1433. (Call# MS D37). Bottom left: Anna Seward’s Poem to the Memory of Lady Miller by Anna Seward,  1782 (Call Number: D2763). Bottom right: A modern example: Brian North Lee’s Bookplates and Labels by Leo Wyatt, 1988 (Call # D3245). Click images to enlarge.

For more information on paste paper, see Rosamond Loring’s book, Decorated Book Papers; being an account of their designs and fashions (Call Number: C6396).

Whitney Baker
Head, Conservation Services