First Impressions: first site visit at PCL Middle Eastern circulating collections

During our ffist visit with Roberta Dougherty (Robin), the Middle Eastern Collections librarian at PCL, we talked briefly about the history of the collection, where the various parts of the overall collection were located and specifically about the group of volumes housed on the 5th floor of

We started the visit in Robin's office area on the 3rd floor. There was a range of volumes there that she has recently received and was in the process of cataloging. Robin took this opportunity to introduce us to the types of bindings that were present in the collection. It quickly became clear that her main interest regarding the preservation assessment of the collection was to find out more about how the different classes of bindings fared over time and how they compared to each other in terms of the longevity of the materials they were made from.

The bindings in the collection can be divided into roughly 5 categories, each one representing unique structural and stylistic features. Some of the materials used in the bindings, like covering material and type of textblock paper, are shared between the categories, while others are particular to one specific category of bindings.

Even though the collection is a circulating one, damage from use was not the main concern, as most volumes do not get checked out very often. Taking into consideration the needs of the custodian, the defining features of the collection and the profile of use, we decided that it made sense to focus on the integrity and inherent vice of the materials in the various binding types, as well as the quality and structure of the bindings.

Below are the five types of bindings that we would like to examine in the course of the survey. There are volume in the Middle Eastern book collection that fall in between the categories specified, but most of the books fit one of these types. For the sake of keeping things simple, we decided that 5 categories was as much as we could deal with given our relative inexperience and the time allotted for the project.

1. Original binding=Books still in their original, unaltered Middle Eastern bindings.

2. Black and gold bindings = Books rebound by a contracted bindery in Egypt. Bindings are typically covered in black synthetic leather with raised bands and minimal gold tooling.

3. Library of Congress bindings = Books rebound by the Library of Congress.

4. Older bindings = Books bound in a quarter style binding with raised bands and minimal gold tooling usually on the spine. These books were usually bound in an earlier time period than the rest of the collection.

5. High-end bindings = Contemporary decorative bindings which feature gold embellishment and colorful covering material. These binding styles are typically found on religious or important editions of literary works.