Projects
Examination Results Post Binding Album
These documents are records of the results of exams taken by law students between 1933 – 1940. The original post binding has broken down and the documents secured together into the remains of the binding using string. This has caused physical damage to the documents, many of which have also been creased and folded to fit within the binding.
As an active archive and research library it is vital that these types of documents are made accessible, without unnecessarily changing the character and historical features of the collection. The client requested the original boards be retained with the binding, posing an additional challenge.
In consultation with the client it was decided to remove the documents from this binding and create a new set of postbindings. Increasing the number of bindings was not an issue, so each document was individually hinged on one side to a hooked sheet meaning handling damage is reduced. A large single binding would have been too heavy and unwieldy, so three slimmer volumes were produced.
All 146 documents were cleaned using smoke sponges and the original guards were removed by washing. Once softened, heavy guard glue was removed and the sheets repaired using archival Japanese papers and wheat starch paste. Rather than re-use the holes in the documents they were all hinged to a separate archival sheet with a Japanese paper strip. Each sheet was then bound into the new post binding structure. Careful pagination ensured that the documents returned in the same order, and labels were tooled to describe the date range of each post binding.
The Examination Results are now easily accessible in three post bindings which incorporate the original covers.
