B-10: Introduction to the History of Bookbinding
9-13 June 2008
1) How useful were the pre-course readings?
1: Extremely useful but hard to get through as a first introduction to the topic, in some cases. Now I want to look at them again. 2: Yes, the pre-course readings were really useful. It made me understand the class, and know all the terminology. 3: I read every word of the readings and found them fabulous. For those with little time, do: Pearson [English Bookbinding Styles], Goldschmidt’s introduction [Gothic & Renaissance Bookbindings], Needham [Twelve Centuries of Bookbinding], Cockerell [Bookbinding and the Care of Books], in that order. Wait, read the Pickwoad article [“Onward and Downward”]; definitely don’t skip the Pickwoad. 4: Yes, they were exactly relevant, and good reading. 5: They gave a helpful overview so that everyone had a common language to start the course. 6: They were helpful, obviously, and I will certainly refer to them again. 7: The pre-course readings were useful for setting context, and will be even more useful as post-course re-readings. 8: It was a lot to read but they were useful. I felt some self-imposed pressure to read everything when an overall perusal would have been fine. They are, however, necessary for the terms used in this class. 9: The pre-course readings were extremely helpful. And now I’ll re-read them, and I’m sure they’ll make even more sense. 10: Useful, definitely. I liked the Pearson reading best, and I think that is the best one to start with. I purchased it (got the rest through libraries) and I’m glad I own it. Also good are Mirjam Foot [The History of Bookbinding as a Mirror of Society] and the Pickwoad article. 11: Very useful and comprehensive. 12: The readings were absolutely necessary for understanding the lectures. I would recommend the introductory readings in the following order: Margaret Lock [Bookbinding Materials and Techniques], Nicholas Pickwoad, Paul Needham, David Pearson, and Mirjam Foot.
2) Were the course syllabus and other materials distributed in class appropriate and useful (or will they be so in the future, after you return home)?
1: Yes, very, and having the pictures and time line, and a longer bibliography, is great! 2: I will show them at a co-worker’s library in Lyon. 3: I will share them with my colleagues. They are concise and well-written. I especially appreciate the bibliography. 4: Yes, appropriate and useful. I will refer to the syllabus often. I wrote most of my notes inside. 5: Yes, I’ll read them again when I get home. 6: The syllabus is very generous. I liked the verso blank feature which allowed me to make notes in the book itself. I will certainly continue to use this packet. 7: Yes, the course materials were useful and will continue to be useful for future reference. 8: Yes, it’s a great resource to have and good to read as the class progressed. I will certainly make good use of them as a summary of the course. 9: The syllabus was great for its concise descriptions of the relevant terms and concepts. 10: Very! The syllabus is an excellent summary of terms, themes, and important points. 11: Yes, very useful. 12: JSvL gave us a wonderful booklet of course notes and images that will be essential for future reading and development in the field.
3) What aspects of the course content were of the greatest interest or relevance for your purposes? Was the intellectual level of the course appropriate?
1: The intellectual level was appropriate. Probably the most relevant for me was...all of it. I am working mostly with c19 and c20 stuff right now, but I also work with older materials. Binding structures are interesting, but I was especially interested in the design aspects (the tooling, blocks, inlays, patterns used) and how to describe them. I also especially found the publishers’ bindings helpful. 2: I like the way JSvL studies bookbinding because at the same time he doesn’t forget to speak of the history, and it’s really important in order to understand all this stuff! 3: Structural and other regionally distinctive aspects were highlighted very effectively. The first day was a good deal of review of the readings, so I wish we had skipped the foundational material in class. 4: Most everything was of interest. I knew almost nothing of the subject, and have learned a great deal. I cannot pick one area above all. The intellectual level was perfect for me. 5: My strongest interest was in bindings from the c15-c17. The intellectual level was appropriate; a high level and very stimulating. 6: The evolution of materials and technique and the breaking out of national tastes was very helpful. Explanation of the decorative vocabulary (even though it is muddled) is nevertheless vitally important! I thought the intellectual level was fine. 7: The class was thought-provoking and entertaining. JSvL was the perfect guide for this survey. 8: Intellectually it was appropriate; knowing where to look up information will be most useful in my job. 9: Learning about identification methods and the changing standards in terminology was very helpful. The content was perfect for the mixed group we had. 10: All aspects are relevant to me, since I love the history of bookbinding. I particularly enjoyed the time spent on the sewing structure of early bindings with the models. The intellectual level was perfect. 11: As a bookbinder I found the information on techniques especially interesting; also the historical and social context were very helpful. The intellectual level was fine. 12: After discussing theories and historical developments, JSvL allowed the class to examine pieces and apply class information. His practicums were an excellent way to refine and clarify new knowledge.
4) If your course left its classroom to visit Special Collections (SC) or to make other field trips away from your classroom, was the time devoted to this purpose well spent?
1: Yes. I just wish we had had even longer. It helped so much to see examples of things we’d seen slides of or discussed. 2: I liked especially that moment, and I was a little bit disappointed because I would have liked to stay for more time in order to study better the books he showed us. It’s really important for me. 3: Very well spent. It was much easier for our large class to see the books there than the publishers’ bindings and models we saw in class. The arrangement of the room was much better. 4: Yes, very. Seeing SC books brought the course to life. 5: Yes, definitely! 6: In principle, you can’t beat looking at the physical object. If I could suggest any improvement it might be to use exemplars which are really gorgeous, or don’t photograph or scan well so that we don’t repeat too much what we’ve seen already in the slides. 7: Our afternoon at SC was most enjoyable. I wish it could have been two afternoons. 8: Yes, SC day was good. However, the extra lunch hour “tour” of the SC building was not as expected. It was too much a “building” tour rather than an SC tour. 9: The SC trip was packed with examples to help bring the concepts into focus. 10: Excellent. I was very happy to have the chance to see so many original examples. It was a treat. 11: Yes. The tour of SC on Tuesday was disappointing. Too much time was spent on talking about the building and not enough time viewing actual books. The digital lab was interesting and we needed more time there. 12: Absolutely, the trip to SC beautifully tied together the information we learned through lectures and PowerPoint.
5) What did you like best about the course?
1: The teacher. He was so knowledgeable and had such a wide range of knowledge. The books we saw: it was wonderful to see and in some cases touch them. The exercises in identifying skins and identifying bindings chronologically; they were really instructive in showing me my weak points. The classmates were wonderful, the space was good, it was all good. I’m really especially glad to take away a text that reiterates a lot of what the teacher discussed, since it was hard to capture it in notes. The text will help me pull it together later. 2: I like the special collections and all the classes where we could see some books. 3: I liked being challenged when JSvL asked us to identify bindings. His willingness to take questions also greatly increased the value of discussion. 4: The depth of the class, and the instructor’s knowledge. 5: Seeing real examples of the bindings we were talking about and looking at in the PowerPoint presentations. JSvL was also a great teacher: always willing to answer questions and discuss ideas with his students! He’s a very nice person, too. 6: Making the rubbing, the bibliography course pack, and JSvL’s stories. 7: JSvL. He is a perfect gentleman scholar. He was most informative, affable, humble, and patient. 8: The day we spent looking at the physical books. Also, JSvL’s personal aspect to the subject. He certainly is knowledgeable and loves his teaching and it shows. 9: Probably the “pre-test”/”post-test” of putting bindings in order. And JSvL – I could not have asked for a better instructor! I can’t wait to take another course from him. 10: The SC visit. 11: The PowerPoint images and explanation followed by seeing the original/actual books. 12: The subject was fascinating and JSvL has a good natured and interesting manner of presented the information which made bookbinding come alive.
6) How could the course have been improved?
1: Add a day or two! There is so much material to get through, I wish it were possible. Also I had hoped to find a way to learn more about using the ALA binding terms but it seems that will be a different course, one I certainly hope to take! 2: Very well. 3: I always want more information on structures, but since so much of the literature is on decoration, the balance is about as good as it can be, I suppose. 4: More time for questions. 5: Make it two weeks long! I would have loved to continue on in more depth about medieval bookbinding structures. I guess I’ll just have to come back again and take another course. 6: A little more of the social/economic/technical forces surrounding publishers’ bindings in the c19, which are not devised on aesthetic principles only. Commerce and capitalism are much bigger forces in c19 publishing than aesthetic movements (with some exceptions). 7: Perhaps more time in SC, but overall the sessions were well planned and interesting. 8: It is difficult in the classroom to stand for a long time to look at all the books. Of course I would have liked to have more contact with the actual books. The PowerPoint presentation (in a darkened room) became quite tiring. 9: I would have liked the content to stay chronological, instead of sticking publisher’s bindings in the middle. 10: More time! I would happily spend another week; but, alas, regular life intrudes. 11: Maybe a larger room with a better arrangement – when we gathered around to view the original books it was tiring and often difficult to see. 12: More time for additional practicums.
7) We are always concerned about the physical well-being both of the RBS teaching collections and of materials owned by UVa’s Special Collections (SC). If relevant, what suggestions do you have for the improved classroom handling of such materials used in your course this week?
1: We didn’t really handle much, and I felt that everyone was very careful around the materials. 2: No, it was perfect. 3: Our classroom was well suited for showing books thanks to the furniture set-up. In SC we were in a small semicircle and it was much more effective; for lectures the classroom was fine. 4: At the beginning of the week a short instruction about how to handle and open a book; stress that students should not handle material with pencil in hand, and tell students not to point to material with a pencil point. 5: They were handled very well. 6: Everyone was quite careful and warned to be so. 7: Materials were handled in a professional manner. 8: Classroom was fine; some way of explaining the books without everyone standing would be an improvement. 9: As someone who handles rare books every day, it’s a little tough to step back and not be able to! But I understand the reasons, and I think they were handled appropriately. 10: None. 11: No suggestions. Materials were handled safely and appropriately. 12: Although there were only twelve students taking the course, the classroom should have been a bit larger for demonstrations.
8) If you attended the Sunday and/or other evening lectures, were they worth attending?
1: I found the one I attended very worthwhile, especially the Steve Beare lecture on John Feely. 2: Yes. I think it’s a good thing to learn to know a subject and meet people. 3: Yes. I encourage anyone who comes to take advantage of them, even if the subject is not their main interest. I learned something in every one. 4: I attended one program and learned a great deal from it. Well worth the time. 5: Yes. 6: The lectures are always good, and the company at social events is what you make it; some beer with the wine would be welcome. 7: Yes. 8: I attended the two lectures and I found them most worthwhile. 9: They were interesting, but not on topics that were of specific interest to me. 10: I attended most activities and enjoyed them. 11: Yes, as an archivist I enjoyed hearing about how someone conducted his research. The [Beare] lecture would have been better if I had known who the two men were and what they did.
9) Did you get your money’s worth? Any final or summary thoughts, or advice for other persons considering taking this course in a future year?
1: Oh yes! Take it! JSvL is a wonderful person to learn from, and you will never regret the week spent, and you’ll emerge with a foundation for more learning! 2: Thank you. It’s a great experience and I will try to work in the same way in Lyon. 3: God, yes! Uh, I mean my employer got its money’s worth and then some. You don’t have to do all the readings, but you really should. Get into it, it is fascinating stuff. 4: Advice would be to make a point of reading some of the advance reading first. This was most helpful in putting the new material learned into a context. 5: Yes, definitely! I’m going to come again. 6: Always a good value, always makes me better at working with books. Thank you for RBS. 7: Be prepared to be delightfully overwhelmed by an amazing amount of information. 8: Absolutely. 9: I think the $895 is a bargain! It was a jam-packed week. I don’t know when I’ve ever learned so much in such a short time! In terms of advice, be prepared for the best, most fun and educational, but exhausting, week you’ve ever had! 10: Absolutely! Thank you, RBS, so much for the scholarship [award] that made my week in Charlottesville possible. It’s been a dream of mine for years to come here, and I couldn’t be happier or more grateful. Huzzah! 11: Do as much reading and viewing of images of books as possible before coming. The content is very detailed and any previous reading is helpful. 12: Yes. Attending RBS was a wonderful learning experience, and it was due mostly to JSvL. He is a great teacher, who knows how to bring out the best in his students and create a comfortable environment for learning.
Number of respondents: 12
PERCENTAGES
Leave Tuition Housing Travel
Institution Institution Institution Institution
gave me leave paid tuition paid housing paid travel
75% 25% 33% 42%
I took vaca- I paid tui- I paid for my I paid my own
tion time tion myself own housing travel
17% 0% 67% 50%
N/A: self- N/A: Self- N/A: stayed N/A: lived
employed, re- employed, with friends nearby
tired, or had retired, or or lived at
summers off scholarship home
8% 75% 0% 8%
There were 4 rare book librarians (33%); 2 general librarians with some rare book duties (17%); 1 archivist/manuscript librarian (8%); 1 general librarian (8%); 1 full-time student (8%); 1 antiquarian bookseller (8%); 1 general cataloguer with some rare book duties (8%); and 1 part-time MLS student (8%).