Course Length: 30 hours
Course Week: 12–17 July 2026
Format: in person, North Bennet Street School in Boston, MA
Fee: $1,495

With greater access to digital surrogates, catalogers, special collections librarians, bibliographers, researchers, and collectors are becoming increasingly interested in the materiality of bound volumes. This course will focus on understanding the working methods and typical binding structures from the seventeenth century through the introduction of case binding in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Unlike many of the printed texts that they contain, bindings can differ from one physical copy to another based upon several factors, making it important to accurately understand, catalog, and describe them.  

Designed for people with little or no prior bookbinding experience, participants in the course will complete three bookbinding models during the week: a seventeenth/eighteenth-century laced-in leather trade binding, a boarded binding circa 1800, and a case binding from about 1840. This is primarily a hands-on learning experience, but bench time will be supplemented by studying surviving historical examples along with PowerPoint lectures showing variations in binding traditions from several countries. The goal of the class is not to create “perfect” bindings but rather to facilitate a deeper understanding of book structure and to better enable participants to decipher clues to structural elements often hidden beneath the surface of surviving contemporary bindings.  

Please note: This course will be held in Boston, MA at the North Bennet Street School in facilities used to teach a two-year, comprehensive bookbinding program. While the course will focus extensively on structural elements of bookbinding, decoration will be discussed only as time allows.