Paper treasure
Years ago, a friend gave me a notebook as a Christmas present. It came from Maltby’s, an Oxford bindery that was then still located in the city centre, on St Michael’s Street. It is a thick case binding in cloth and marbled paper, with beautiful creamy pages. I have never used it. More than that: I have never intended to use it. I loved the present for how thoughtful and generous it was, and the object for its quality and place in the local history of a craft and trade.
My reverence for the skill behind the book has evolved. I can make notebooks like this now, and notice that it isn’t perfect, that the squares aren’t even. But it is a new kind of connection to the object: as a fellow bookbinder, and as a part of my story, from collecting to making.
Many think handmade notebooks are too expensive, or too beautiful to use, or even redundant in a digital age. They are, of course, functional objects, and they should work as such, but they are also so much more than that.
A new exhibition has recently opened at the Weston Library called Treasured. It explores what makes a treasure, displaying examples from the Bodleian Libraries’ collections. I’ve only had a quick look around so far, but I am fascinated by the questions it asks. I have a background in cultural heritage management so, while my focus was on buildings and landscape, the idea is familiar to me. What you manage when looking after historic items is the values that are attached to them. This could be age, rarity, beauty, or connection with a person, or its role in a local community. There is not just one reason for something to be important and worthy of conservation.
The same applies to books, from medieval manuscripts to signed first editions, from luxurious bindings to famous marginalia. It also applies to the books – and notebooks – in your home. There may be a cookbook inherited from a grandparent, annotated perhaps, with extra recipes slipped in between its pages. Maybe it’s the battered copy of a favourite paperback, or a beautiful hardback received as a gift. Perhaps it is your own diaries, going back decades, or those left behind by a relative. It might even be that special notebook waiting for the perfect project, that you take out from time to time, even though you’re not ready – not just yet – to pick up a pen.
I make books because I believe they can be treasures. They might stay on a shelf, like rarely worn jewels, or be covered in thoughts and sketches, battered and loved. There is so much potential in paper, some thread, a piece of cloth… to be turned, with a bookbinder’s skill, into someone’s treasure.
