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Introduction
The National
Library of Medicine's Bathtub Collection is an archive of materials found
in the old bindings when rare books in the Library were conserved. The
materials found in the bindings include fragments of old printed books
or manuscript materials which are often treasures on their own. In the
Bathtub Collection, NLM has organized and described these fragments and
made them available to scholars.
The story
of the Bathtub Collection begins in the middle of the last century. In
the 1940's, The Army Medical Library, as the National Library of Medicine
was then known, began a serious conservation program for its rare book
collection. The AML hired Dorothy Schullian as curator of rare books and
Jean Eschman, a master bookbinder from Switzerland.
Eschman
repaired many of the old bindings and, when he considered them beyond
repair, replaced them with new leather covers. Some of the old bindings
were kept but many of them were discarded as worthless. Conservation practices
have changed since then, and conservators are now much more cautious about
replacing original bindings and never discard them.
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Jean Eschman in his bindery.
As for the well-meaning people who deliberately remove the written
or printed linings from old book covers, ‘because they are interesting,’
the curse of Ernulphus on their vandalism!” (E.P.
Goldschmidt. Gothic and Renaissance Bookbindings. London, 1928, vol.
1, p. 123)
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Last reviewed: 07 April 2008
Last updated: 07 April 2008
First published: 07 April 2008
Metadata| Permanence level: Permanent: Stable Content