Leather for Libraries — Reading Notes

A Committee in Print: Five Voices on a Single Problem

The Sound Leather Committee of the Library Association produced this volume, and its collaborative structure is evident. Each chapter carries a distinct authorial voice and expertise: Hulme, the patent-office librarian, writes as a historian of trade; Parker, a laboratory scientist, catalogues chemical causes of decay; Seymour-Jones, a leather merchant, evaluates skins by provenance and price; Davenport, a museum curator, offers hands-on repair methods; Williamson, likely a binder, specifies workshop fittings. The book thus moves from the abstract (historical monopolies) to the concrete (cost per square foot of pigskin, from 8d. to 1s. 4d.). This polyvocal approach means the reader encounters competing emphases—Parker’s laboratory data versus Davenport’s anecdotal “expedient I have not tried”—without editorial smoothing.

The Skin as a Character: Goat, Seal, and Hog in Close-Up

Seymour-Jones’s chapter on provenance dwells on the physical character of each skin. Goat leather is praised for its “hard wearing” quality on heavy tomes, yet imitations are “easily detected” by a water test: embossed grain disappears, while true hog grain reveals “clear hair holes through from grain to flesh.” Hog-skin is described as “practically fibreless, approaching nearer to a piece of tough gristle.” Such tactile language recurs across chapters, linking material properties to durability. The authors repeatedly warn against mechanical or chemical treatments that reduce a skin’s “unique capacity to withstand the act of attrition.” These passages transform leather from a commodity into a living substance with limits and virtues.

The Bindery as a Site of Intervention

Davenport’s chapter on repairing and binding confronts the librarian’s twin enemies: mechanical wood pulp and clay-laden paper. He describes soft, spongy leaves that “can best be dealt with in the very expensive way of inlaying each page in a surround of sound, true paper,” and proposes an untested alternative of enclosing each leaf in “fine open silk net.” The tone is pragmatic but weary—operations “require great care and skill, and take a long time.” Williamson’s subsequent chapter on bindery fittings shifts to the spatial and financial realities of a small workshop, specifying equipment without idealizing the craft. Together, these sections ground the book’s earlier historical and chemical analysis in the daily work of the library bindery.

Recurring Images of Decay and Reform

Throughout the handbook, a binary opposition recurs: the “wisdom of the ancients” versus modern degradation. Hulme’s opening chapter traces a decline from sumach-tanned Spanish leather to contemporary “badly overloaded” paper. Parker’s scientific chapter identifies specific chemical causes, while Seymour-Jones warns that imitations “cast discredit” on splendid skins. Davenport’s image of “blotting-paper” leaves and clay-laden plates that “rapidly fall out” reinforces a sense of crisis. Yet the book is not merely lament; each chapter offers a remedy, from selecting proper tannages to specifying bindery tools. This movement from diagnosis to prescription—from the historical monopoly of 1565 to the cost of pigskin per square foot—gives the handbook its practical, reformist momentum.

Readers will find that the book’s value lies less in a unified argument than in the juxtaposition of expert perspectives. The librarian is addressed as a decision-maker who must weigh historical precedent, chemical evidence, material provenance, and practical cost. The handbook rewards selective reading: a conservator might start with Davenport’s repair methods, while a collection manager might begin with Seymour-Jones’s skin evaluations. The index, though brief, helps navigate these distinct contributions.

There’s something touching about a book devoted to the slow decay of leather—how the bindings we love wear out, no matter our care. I found myself thinking of that while turning old pages, and of all the eager young readers once promised adventures. The smell of that vanished bindery lingers. Blackie's Books for Young People, Catalogue - 1899 — Inside the Classic feels like a photograph of those same hopeful shelves, before the sumach faded and the cloth grew quiet.