Trinity College Library sends us a detailed account of the conservation of a damaged manuscript pocket Bible. The parchment was so degraded by mould and moisture and the binding so tight that the book could hardly be opened without falling apart. Some repairs to the parchment involved straightening out little bent bits, and this was done with moisture and tweezers. In some instances it sufficed for the conservator to use just their breath to dampen the damaged spot using a straw to direct it.

The damage shown above was repaired by reconstituting the parchment. “The parchment leaves were consolidated and repaired with 2.5-3.5mm dots of remoistenable tissue cut with a Japanese screw punch and applied with very fine tweezers under magnification.” In spite of the conservators success in repairing the parchment it was judged that the leaves remained too fragile to be rebound into a book, or even to be turned in the normal way, so they were preserved as individual leaves placed between oversize pages of archival paper gathered into quires.

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Each repaired quire was bound as a paper-covered pamphlet and the whole bible is now stored in a box designed to hold the whole thing under slight pressure when closed.

Trinity College conservator Edward Cheese tell us “The conserved manuscript has been photographed and can be read in the Wren Digital Library. Those interested in the collation determined during the disbinding can view the diagrams.”

The whole process took three years to complete. It is inspiring to reflect that we live in a world where we can afford to do such work.