It's the end of another academic year at West Dean! Following a long tradition from the Books department of having a reception for students to show their work to and chat with professional conversators, clients, visiting lecturers, and friends of the college, the rest of the college now participates on the same day. I love seeing the same faces turn up year after year to celebrate with us. Here are some photos for those who couldn't make it in the flesh!

The marine chronometer signed by John Lilley & son from 1929 has shown evidences of a failure of one of its major components. The helical hairspring which is co-regulating the frequency of the balance (factor determining the rate of the mechanism) was broken by fracture near its lower attachment point. The aim of the project was to provide a replacement spring for the chronometer which would possess the required mechanical properties (toughness, elasticity, shape, composition …).

Step-by-step instructions for a herringbone endband-with a video!

Among the various nineteenth century case bindings that rest on the shelves in the West Dean Books department awaiting treatment was one that was different to the rest. It was particularly appealing as its binding was completely covered in pressure-sensitive adhesive tape and it was therefore an interesting challenge to take on for a beginning book conservation student.

While studying at West Dean, a key and sobering lesson I have learned is that most of the objects you will work on as a book conservator will be brown. Sometimes reddish-brown, sometimes greenish-brown, but still basically brown.

Accordingly, there was cause for celebration when The Royal Jubilee 1935 came across my bench. ...

Recently, I completed work on my MA Thesis which was entitled: A comparative investigation into the off-gassing properties of three brands of EVA and PVAc adhesives currently used in book conservation.

In Part I of this series Mito discusses her MA research on wheat starch paste recipes.

A disaster in a museum or historic house can range in scale from the theft or damage of an individual object to the wholesale destruction of a collection or property by fire or flood. As a Collections Care Assistant for English Heritage, part of my job is to do anything reasonably practicable to try and prevent such an event from occurring and to help mitigate its effects should the worst happen.

Most people know that the metric system was introduced in France, associated with the whirlwind of new legislation and standards that followed the French Revolution. However, it is less obvious why this occurred, and why it occurred in France rather than in England or elsewhere.