Book History - Tumblr Posts
A jewel box of a book ✨ This 19th century French sales sample book contains very thin metal ornaments, made of foil over card. These would have been used like fancy sequins, and adorned everything from cards to clothes! They’re sometimes called Dresdens after the town in Germany where many were made. I know I say this a lot, but this book really floored me 🤩 Part of col. 838 in the Winterthur Library 📚
One of these things is not like the other…
The bindings of the books pictured in plastic bags contain arsenic, while the un-bagged books do not.
Copper arsenic compounds were used as a green pigment in textiles and home furnishings during the 19th century. In 2019, Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation embarked on a study of green cloth-covered book bindings from the 19th century and continues to lead the way on research regarding these compounds in library materials. Their current findings suggest that the publication date range for volumes containing arsenic is 1830 to 1880 and that such books are bound in green cloth or green leather. Most green book covers from this period do not contain arsenic. (While books containing arsenic are green, not all green books contain arsenic.) Our best current estimate based on the testing we have done is that less than .03% of the print titles in our collection contain arsenic. As we identify print titles that contain arsenic, we will take measures to provide other options to make the content available wherever possible.
Read more about how the University of Chicago Library is handling these rare green bindings.
WE LOVE OPEN ACCESS AND REMOVAL OF BARRIERS TO LEARNING!!!!
Exciting news for people who love reading research about manuscripts but don't have money!