We recently shared a blog post on the Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library’s blog that serves as a companion post to this one.  Both posts focus on the repair of two CHPL books, Covered Bridges and When Art Meets Design, that received split-board binding treatments carried out by Kasie.  While this post focuses on the treatment itself, the other illustrates the journey of a circulating book through treatment in the lab (and at home) and its eventual return to the library.  We highly recommend checking out A Journey from Broken to Mended: Repairing Books in the Preservation Lab. 

As a hybrid conservation lab, we treat and house both special collection items and general circulating collection items, as well as everything in between.  Special collection items are rare or archival materials that typically do not circulate; basically, books and other objects that you can’t take home with you, are out of print, valuable, and/or are less readily available locally, nationally or even globally.  General circulating collections are typically books that can be checked out and taken home, and tend to be newer books, books still in print, and/or more popular books.  Since we are a collaborative lab that means that we treat and house special collections and general collections from both the University of Cincinnati Libraries (UCL) and the Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library (CHPL). 

Due to the nature of these two types of collections (general and special), the treatment, documentation and who treats what is very different. Before the pandemic, most of the staff’s time was dedicated to special collection items or the items that fall between the two categories, which we call medium rare, and our students and volunteers, with plenty of hands-on, one-on-one training, handled the bulk of our general collection repairs.  But then working from home, all or a majority of the time, became the norm for Lab staff and we had to shift focus and turn to taking on more general collection repairs that we could more easily take home with us.  Initially, we took home more difficult sewing projects and mending projects that our students or volunteers either hadn’t gotten to yet or were avoiding for one reason or another.  Then, after we could return to the Lab in some capacity to prep our own materials, we realized that split-board bindings* were the ideal general collections treatment for staff to work on from home. 

A split-board binding is a new binding or case that incorporates several newly added reinforcement elements that are then sandwiched between two pieces of board that make up the front and back covers. 

Split-board bindings are a great solution for oversized, heavy books like coffee table books and art books with glossy pages, which are very common in both UCL and CHPL general circulating collections.  They are also, by far, the most complex general collections treatment we perform in the lab and have always been done by the conservation technicians, instead of our students or volunteers. This is not only because of the complexity of the treatment, but also because of the lengthy treatment time involved; a student or volunteer’s limited weekly schedule in the lab is not conducive to such an extensive treatment.  Though it was a general collections treatment reserved solely for the conservation technicians, prior to March 2020 the techs unfortunately had little time to work on these treatments, as our focus was primarily on special collections treatments and housing.  Therefore, we had amassed a little backlog of split-board binding treatments – enter quarantine and working from home! 

One question that might come to mind, if split-board bindings are so elaborate and extensive, why do them on general collections items at all?  Why not just buy a new copy; wouldn’t that be more cost effective?   Typically, the books that warrant a split-board binding are more pricey, glossy paged, oversized books, like art and architecture books.  And unfortunately, though these books have a much higher retail price than your average James Patterson novel, the construction is generally less than ideal.  These books might have beautifully printed, full-color, thick and glossy pages and dynamic cover art, which makes them attractive to the reader, but they also are often sewn with very thin, fragile thread that easily breaks.  The spines are generally lined with a layer of rigid plasticized glue that can become very brittle over time.  Often, the covers or cases are constructed solely of printed paper, not cloth, and generally have a thick piece of board along the spine (which we call a flat back) that doesn’t allow the book to flex properly when opened and can actually make the spine break down and tear in record time.  It is not uncommon for these books to have little to no reinforcement in the attachment of the textblock to the binding (i.e. how the block of pages is attached to the cover), which makes the heavy textblock break away from the cover quite easily with use.

But why are these books constructed so poorly?  These large coffee table and art books are constructed with individual use in mind, not with the frequent use and circulation that comes with a library collection item.  The split-board treatment, along with many general collection repairs, improves on a bad binding design and makes the book stronger and sturdier, using better binding techniques and materials that can better stand up to use by many library patrons. 

A split-board binding treatment involves creating a new binding with new sewn-on endsheets that are reinforced with cloth, at least three sewn on linen tapes (supports), new spine linings, and a new quarter bound case created with two boards at the front cover and two at the back cover, and generally an inlaying of the original cover designs.  However, additional elements of treatment may be warranted based on the condition of the book, such as broken sewing, tears, detached leaves, etc.  The steps generally proceed in the following order: 

• Prepare materials in the Lab – new endsheets, starched reinforcing cloth, linen tapes, spine linings, binders board, bookcloth and Bristol board for inlays. 
• Detach textblock from cover, if needed.  
• Remove original spine linings, mechanically and with poultices.  
• If broken, remove original sewing thread and disbind textblock.  
• Mend any tears and guard any separated, torn or detached leaves.  
• Sew to include linen tape supports and new endsheets using French link stitch – whether partial/added sewing over the original sewing or complete resewing is dependent on whether the original sewing was intact or if it was broken and the textblock disbound. 
• Round and back spine, as needed.  
• New spine linings adhered to the spine:  
  • Reversible layer of kozo fiber tissue with wheat starch paste.  
  • Original stuck-on endbands, if present, or new endbands.  
  • Cloth reinforcement lining (Cambric) with flanges that extends past the spine on both sides.  
  • Several paper linings to further support the textblock.   
• Create “laminated flanges”, the key characteristic of a split-board binding, using the sewn on linen tapes, the flanged cloth piece adhered to the spine, and the first and last leaves of the new endsheets.  Cut laminated flanges into thirds, with the center portion incorporating all the linen tapes.  
• If the original covers included artwork that should be retained, mechanically remove from the original boards.  Remove remaining board backing with poultice.  
• Remove and clean the original spine.  
• Cut binder’s board to size – 2 pieces of board are cut for both the front and back covers (4 pieces total).  The thickness of the boards used is dependent on the shoulder of the book.  
• Determine placement of the board and adhere the middle laminated flange segment to the top of inner board, keeping the top and bottom laminated flange segment under the inner board, unattached.  Adhere the outer board to the inner, thus sandwiching the middle laminated flange section between the two boards.
• If the original cover is being inlayed, create and attach an inlay border of thin Bristol board to the cover boards, as needed.  
• Covering the boards:  
  • Attach the spine cloth piece and turn in at the head and tail.  
  • Attach the board cloth to the upper and lower boards and turn in the edges.  
• Bevel the remaining laminated flanges and sewn on cloth reinforcement (Cambric) slightly and attach both, in sequence, to the inner boards.   
• Adhere the pastedowns and trim the remaining sewn on Cambric to roughly 1/8” – ¼”.  
• If there are cover inlays, adhere the inlay(s) to the cover(s) within the inlay border.  
• Adhere the original spine to the new spine of the case. 

When completed the treatment offers a substantial amount of support to the textblock and a robust attachment of the textblock to the new case.  While it is an involved treatment that requires a good amount of preparation, work and skill, the end results are worth it all, and the improvements are significant. 

Treatments of this magnitude take many, many hours over the course of several weeks. Often, only a few steps of the treatment can be accomplished at a time to account for drying time, and timing out visits to the Lab. To take a sneak peak at what some of the steps of treatment look like please check out the video below:

For an example of how Kasie used a split-board binding treatment and modified it for a special collection item that came to the Lab from UC’s Winkler Center without a case, check out her blog, A Monster of a Treatment. 

We hope you’ve enjoyed this peek into a split-board binding treatment!  If you did and you want to see more of what we do, and see the Lab, then please check out our Virtual Lab Tour which will take place on Tuesday, January 26^th at noon, live on the Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library’s Facebook page.  For forthcoming information about the Virtual Tour follow the Public Library on Facebook and follow the Lab on Instagram (@thepreservationlab). 

*This treatment was originally designed at the Brigham Young University lab. Then it was brought to the University of Kansas lab by Brian Baird, where our conservator, Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer, learned the treatment and thus brought it to the Preservation Lab.

Kasie Janssen (CHPL) – Senior Conservation Technician & Jessica Ebert (UCL) – Conservation Technician