Colleagues, I'm pleased to share this link to two short videos documenting the recent conservation treatment of the Stanford University Libraries' copy of the 1722, Amsterdam edition of Menorat ha-ma'or: http://purl.stanford.edu/jv402cb2554. The link leads to a record in our catalog interface for the Stanford Digital Repository [SDR], "Conservation treatment documentation of Menorat ha-ma'or, 1722." Embedded in that record are links to the two videos - before (BT4851.mov) and after (AT4851.mov) treatment - and to a PDF of the form used by the conservator who worked on this volume. The file sizes for the videos are fairly large and may take a while to download.
The videos are narrated by Elizabeth (Beth) Ryan, a conservator who has worked on this and other rare Hebraica books in the Stanford Libraries. In addition to noting the obvious conservation issues (loose pages, chipping of the parchment binding), she makes some interesting observations regarding the ways in which the sewing practices differ from what she has encountered in contemporaneous books in Western languages. (These differences in sewing and binding practices were addressed by Nicholas Pickwoad in his article, "The Problems Presented by the Jewish Books of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries," in International Conference on Conservation and Restoration of Archival and Library Materials, Erice, 22nd-29th April 1996, ed. by Carlo Federici and Paola F. Munafo, with the assistance of Daniela Costantini [Palermo: G. B. Palumbo, 1999], vol. 1, pp. 333-345.) Stanford's copy of this edition of Menorat ha-ma'or previously belonged to the late Rabbi William Braude, of Providence, RI (whose library was acquired by Stanford in the mid-1990s, during Roger Kohn's curatorship). The videos on the conservation of Menorat ha-ma'or and other rare items reflect an expansion of the Stanford University Libraries' Conservation Services treatment documentation. For additional background, see this post on the Digital Library Blog for the SDR Deposit of the Week: https://library.stanford.edu/blogs/digital-library-blog/2015/12/sdr-deposit-week-conservation-services-treatment-documentation. Happy Hanukkah, Zachary --- Zachary M. Baker Stanford University Libraries Stanford, CA 94305-6004 E-mail [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://library.stanford.edu/people/zbaker
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