Caring for our volumes | Theresa Zammit Lupi

What's the first thing you look out for when getting to work on a book you're conserving?

The first thing I check is its condition. This will immediately give me signals on how to handle the book. If it is safe enough to look through, then if it is a printed book, I would look out for its place and date of publication. If it is a manuscript, I would look out for any bibliographic evidence that would indicate its date and place of production.

What does the work itself entail?

Being a conservator is not an easy task. Primarily it is very time-consuming, requires great patience and is hardly profitable. In an instantaneous society where we want things with a click of a button, conservation appears to be quite unattractive, particularly to the younger generation. Being a qualified conservator also means having a background in art history as well as chemistry and biology, subjects that are not often found in conjunction with one another.

It involves having a sense of colour and a good hand at drawing as well as being generally dextrous with tools and handling objects. The treatment of a book or manuscript involves first a diagnosis or prognosis of the damage in question, then a proposal or estimate for its treatment and finally its execution. The work per se, can involve either minimal treatments or more interventive ones which can be complex and time-consuming and involve more than one person.

Treatments always depend on the type of deterioration present and the purpose and use of the book. Sometimes one can also opt not to treat a book whatsoever particularly if there is the risk of loosing any part of its history. I always remember the words of Professor Nicholas Pickwoad, my former tutor: 'There is no escaping from the fact that as soon as a knife is inserted into a binding in order to initiate some repair process, the history of the book begins, inexorably, to be lost'. Reaching a compromise is probably the most sensible thing to do at times, but is never done at the detriment of an object.

What would you say are some of the most important factors that distinguish book conservation from other forms of conservation?

I do not think that there are particular factors that make book conservation different from the conservation on other artefacts in terms of training, approach and work ethic. But one thing I can say is that a book can normally be compared to a historic building. Unlike paintings or sculptures, which only have an aesthetic function, a book (like a building) has both decorative as well as functional values. Apart from its decorative elements, the opening and closing characteristics of a book together with its readability in turning its pages are important factors to consider during treatment.

Do you think that we tend to forget that a book is an object in its own right?

The element of the uniqueness of a book has begun to diminish with the mass replication of an identical original with Gutenberg's advent of printing more than 500 years ago. It is to no surprise that books are primarily regarded for their content value and nothing else. This is probably the reason why I prefer manuscripts over printed books!

Do you think that the digital revolution and e-readers will re-kindle (no pun intended) a nostalgic interest for books as objects d'art?

There is nothing like a book made of paper, its touch, smell, weight, actual size. I might be a bit of a romantic in this respect. Owning a Kindle is a very remote possibility in my case but of course I do see its attractiveness: it is light-weight, portable and 'cool'. Physical books occupy space which can be problematic over time.

A Kindle can store thousands of volumes. There is no doubt that digitising books and entire libraries means we will get lazier over time because the availability and magnitude of material on the net would need to be sorted and filtered both in terms of quality and quantity.

Sadly we are fast approaching the age where physical books are diminishing and bookshops and libraries are less popular. And probably this is what also drives me even more to make people aware of the pricelessness of our paper heritage and advocate the safeguarding of our national collections.

Theresa Zammit Lupi will deliver 'My life with books - a book conservator's perspective' at Din l-Art Ħelwa, 133, Melita Street, Valletta at 18:00.