Red Branch Book Restoration specializes in book-cloth restoration for books from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries including everything from  the Wizard of Oz to Darwin’s Origin of Species.

E-mails and phone calls are always welcome.  I am happy to talk with you about your books, and if I can’t help you I may know another bookbinder who can. If you can e-mail me a picture of your book it is incredibly helpful in making an estimate.

 

 

A Note on Restoration vs. Conservation

and Repair

 

Restoration:

The process of returning a book, document, or other archival material as nearly as possible to its original condition. The entire scope of "restoration" ranges from the repair of a torn leaf, or removal of a simple stain, to the complete rehabilitation of the material, including, at times, de-acidification, alkaline buffering, resizing, filling in missing parts, re-sewing, replacement of endpapers and/or boards, recovering or restoration of the original covering material, and refinishing in a manner sympathetic to the time of the original binding of the publication. Restoration, therefore, encompasses virtually the entire range of book work—mending, repairing, rebinding, and reconstruction.

 

Conservation:

The conscious, deliberate and planned supervision, care and preservation of the total resources of a library, archives, or similar institution, from the injurious effect of age, use (or misuse), as well as external or internal influences of all types, but especially light, heat, humidity and atmospheric influences. 2. A field of knowledge concerned with the coordination and planning for the practical application of the techniques of binding, restoration, paper chemistry, and other material technology, as well as other knowledge pertinent to the preservation of archival resources.

 

The above definitions taken from:

Bookbinding and the Conservation of books

A Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology

Matt T. Roberts and Don Etherington

 

Conservation differs from Restoration in that it aims to preserve and clarify what survives, rather than replace what is missing to make it whole again. It is History vs. The Present, yet both have an eye to the Future.

                 ~SSWB

 

 

Repair:

Book repair is not restoration and it is not conservation.  Repair is an “improvement” made to a book that is focused on the functionality of the book.  It is a visible change that is unsubtle and un-matching . Yet it may be the only viable alternative for a relatively unimportant book.  And if done well , it can look very nice, clean and neat, but it could never be mistaken for an  original binding. Sometimes this is all that is needed.

It is always cheaper.

             ~SSWB

 

 

 

Contact  Information:

E-mail: Sophia@bookrestoration.org

Cell phone: (541) 601-7543

 

 

Secure Mailing Address:

Red Branch Book Restoration

2305-C Ashland St.

PMB #289

Ashland, Oregon

97520

 

Accepts all forms of  mail including UPS and Fed-Ex

Red Branch

Book Restoration

Sophia Siobhan Wolohan Bogle

Using Traditional Book Restoration and Conservation Techniques