Craft of bookbinding to be explored in March 1 SU Library Associates presentation

Craft of bookbinding to be explored in March 1 SU Library Associates presentationFebruary 22, 2001Jonathan Hayjhay@syr.edu

Peter D. Verheyen, preservation and access librarian for the SU Library, will speak on “Bookbinding: A Thriving Craft” at 4 p.m. March 1 in the Hillyer Room of Bird Library. The event is sponsored by SU Library Associates. Bookbinding, a centuries-old craft, and the book arts have a new vitality, in part because of the use that practitioners are making of the World Wide Web. Verheyen will discuss the recent past and anticipated future of bookbinding. He will review the skills one must acquire to become a bookbinder, showing examples of the binding process and its results. Examples of bookbinding are shown in “The Best of the Best,” the Guild of Book Workers traveling exhibition now on display in the Department of Special Collections, located on the sixth floor of Bird Library. Verheyen will provide background on the exhibition during his lecture. At SU, Verheyen is responsible for the preservation and treatment of items from the Department of Special Collections. He is also involved in the creation of book arts-related Web sites and listservs. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University and an M.L.S. from SU. He previously worked as rare book conservator for Cornell University and as assistant conservator at Yale University. He also worked with conservators in private practice. As part of his own training, he was traditionally apprenticed in Germany, where he learned hand bookbinding, and studied book conservation in Ascona, Switzerland. His creative work has been exhibited with the Guild of Book Workers and other organizations on the regional, national and international levels. The event is free and open to the public.