This article was downloaded by: [University of Waterloo]On: 06 November 2014, At: 12:33Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

International Journal of Heritage StudiesPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjhs20

Books as museum objectsPaul Goldman aa Department of Prints and Drawings , The British Museum , Great Russell Street, London,WC1B 3DGPublished online: 18 Apr 2007.

To cite this article: Paul Goldman (1995) Books as museum objects, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 1:2, 103-110,DOI: 10.1080/13527259508722137

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13527259508722137

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in thepublications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representationsor warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Anyopinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not theviews of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should beindependently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses,actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoevercaused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematicreproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in anyform to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Books as Museum ObjectsPaul Goldman

AbstractThis paper considers the problems raised by the holding of books in museums, asopposed to libraries, when they have been collected and donated to such institutions,not primarily as works of reference or as literature, but rather as art objects inthemselves. Books in such a context present difficulties for curators and publicalike, and these issues range from the organisational to the philosophical. Mattersof conservation, presentation and Interpretation are all touched upon in order tostimulate discussion of the very nature of books themselves.

For centuries the proper place to hold collections of books has beenconsidered to be the library. Large or small, public or private, suchinstitutions are set aside, as the Oxford English Dictionary succinctly definesit, for 'reading, study, or reference*. Libraries collect books, and museumsand galleries collect objects or pictures. All might be well as long as suchparameters are strictly adhered to. Problems begin to arise when institutionsdevoted to one range of activity deliberately or unwittingly are calledupon to undertake another for which they were not intended.

These quandaries may be philosophical or organisational, and they canstray into matters of conservation, presentation and display. One question,however, is constant. This is the vexed one of how it may be best to dealwith books collected for particular reasons within the museum environmentThe display and conservation of books in such a setting focuses, in highrelief, a wider point which Sir John Pope-Hennessy crystallised when hestated: 'the whole museum situation is inherently an artificial one. Theworks exhibited were intended for a vast variety of purposes . . . the onlypurpose for which we can be confident they were not designed was to beshown in a museum . . . they have been wrested from their setting andalienated from whatever role they were originally intended to perform.This is the museum dilemma.'1

In some ways, books are more complex considered as museum objectsthan many other items; at least a pot or a bronze can be seen in itsentirety in a glass case. The same is true of a picture on a wall. A book, onthe other hand, can only reveal a single opening or a cover. With very fewexceptions, books are intended for private and individual perusal, andwith hundreds of pages in each one, how can they make any genuineimpact in the museum context?

Department ofPrints andDrawings, TheBritish Museum,Great RussellStreet, LondonWC1B 3DG.

1. Quoted from MargaretHall. On Display - ADesign Grammar forMuseum Exhibitions.London: LundHumphries. 1987 p.U.

KeywordsBooks,Collections,Museums,Libraries.Presentation,Interpretation,

IJHS 1 (2) 103-110 © Intellect Ltd 1995 103

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f W

ater

loo]

at 1

2:33

06

Nov

embe

r 20

14

2. A. Griffiths andR.WUliams. TheDepartment of Printsand Drawings In theBritish Museum -User's Guide, London:British Museum Press.1987. p.5.

3.The Robin deBeaumont Collection.For an art-historicaldiscussion of thecollection with acomplete checklist seePaul Goldman.Victorian IllustratedBooks - The Heyday ofWood- Engraving,London: BritishMuseum Press. 1994.

4. Antony Griffiths InPreface to Goldman,pp 9-10.

The Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, whilenot pursuing a policy of actively collecting books, nevertheless possesseslarge numbers of them. These have been acquired over many years,invariably on account of the significance of the artists or engraversresponsible for the plates. Indeed, many of the separate prints in similarcollections throughout the world were originally presented in bound form,but became detached from their surroundings because of the desires andpreferences of collectors. Since the British Museum and the British librarywere part of a single institution until 1973, a principle of distinction betweenthe two had to be devised. This is simply explained in a handbook: 'if avolume contains letterpress it is a book (and thus for the library), while ifit does not it is a collection of plates (and for this Department - Prints andDrawings).'2

In May 1992 a private collector, Robin de Beaumont, wished to donatehis important collection of British Illustrators' Books of the 1860s to theDepartment of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum.3 The items inthe de Beaumont Collection differ from the majority of other volumes inthe Department in the following crucial respect. The Victorian books inthe gift are almost all works of literature which are illustrated with wood-engravings. Hence they do not conform, on the whole, to the notion ofbeing "collections of plates".

The collection was presented to the Museum with great forethought onthe part of the donor. He was aware of the presence in the Department ofthe highly important Dalziel Archive. It consists of some forty-nine volumesof proof wood-engravings of the production of the Dalziel workshop 1839-93, comprising some 54,000 impressions. The Dalziels were responsiblefor the engraving of many of the illustrations contained within the booksin the de Beaumont collection, and the acquisition of the collection by theDepartment was viewed by its Keeper as both highly relevant in the contextof what was already held, and also significant for other reasons. He wrote:'But, despite having so many proofs for the illustrated books of the 1860s,the Department lacked the books themselves . , . many of these editionsare not to be found in the British library (where the British MuseumDepartment of Printed Books has rested since 1973) or, if there, are nowin poor condition after years of handling.'4

The comment about the condition of the de Beaumont copies is animportant one. The collection had been painstakingly built up over thirtyyears with a keen eye to the state of preservation, not only of the contents,but also to the freshness and completeness of the fragile bindings. Thecollector had pursued a ruthless policy of only accepting volumes whichhad not suffered unsympathetic repair and which retained their originalendpapers. He was deeply concerned that his collection should maintain

104 Paul Goldman

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f W

ater

loo]

at 1

2:33

06

Nov

embe

r 20

14

its integrity as a group of items within the institution, and it was thepledge by the Department to honour this request which ensured that somajor a gift was secured. The disparate nature of the assemblage meant,however, that the collector had to be prepared to make certain compromises.5

The books are now housed together in a single run of bookshelves and thebulky bound volumes of illustrated magazines are also kept together inanother case, a short distance away.6

Every item in the British Museum bears an unique register number andwhere possible this number is stamped on the object. A special stamp wasmade for the de Beaumont collection material and this is applied to themounts of the drawings as well as to the versos of them. For the books,particular care and sensitivity is required. The derogatory phrase "ex-library", found in second-hand booksellers' catalogues, frequently denotesa state little less than ruinous. The difficulty with the de Beaumont bookswas how they should be marked to render them secure, while remainingalert to their delicacy as objects. The decision was taken to apply theregister number discreetly inside the front cover at the foot of the endpaper,and place the unobtrusive collection stamp on the back of the title-page(an area usually left blank or with minimal printing).

Where the illustrations themselves are part-and-parcel of the letterpressin the books few difficulties as regards stamping are presented, but problemsarise where they are tipped in and hence bear no text on the back. Theseillustrations are very vulnerable to removal and it was decided that suchplates should be stamped unobtrusively with a minimal but recognisablemark. The institution has cautiously addressed such concerns, althoughthis particular process is extremely time-consuming, so accusations ofinsensitivity to the collection would be unreasonable. The views of thedonor on such matters were always considered and as far as possiblecomplied with.

The reference books donated are placed with the illustrated books in thegift, but the original drawings are housed within the British Drawingssequence in the main Departmental Collection. Some of the proof wood-engravings have been mounted and these are kept, like the drawings, inthe main BM series of mounted wood-engravings, while the loose engravingsare placed together in a box close to the collection of books. After registeringand stamping, the letters and documents will be similarly boxed and housedin the same area. Other letters, written by artists and authors and tippedinto particular copies, will remain in their settings, but these too willrequire stamping.

The physical characteristics of these books are complex and evenparadoxical. Many were intended as gift-books for gentle perusal in thedrawing-room, and despite the extravagant and sometimes even vulgar

5. In addition to thebooks themselves, thecollection containsdrawings, proofs, wood-blocks, bound volumesor illustrated periodicals,archival material, andrelevant works ofreference.

6. It is hoped to re-unite the books andthe bound magazinesIn a singlecontinuous run ofshelves, when spacepermits.

Book as Museum Objects 105

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f W

ater

loo]

at 1

2:33

06

Nov

embe

r 20

14

7. In 1992-3 therewere 6.373 visitors tothe Students' Room orthe Department of •Prints and Drawings.

8. The exhibition,which had the sametitle as theaccompanyingpublication, was held Inthe British MuseumPrints and DrawingsGallery from 28January - 24 April1994.

gilt bindings, are often of the highest fragility. While money and care wereexpended on the design, illustrations and texts, the books were frequentlynot sewn properly in signatures, but instead held by the euphemisticallytermed "perfect binding". At this period the glue used to stick the pagesinto the binding was gutta percha - an evaporated milky fluid or latex(rubber), obtained from trees, chiefly in what is now Malaysia. The Victorianshailed this substance as some sort of "superglue" and believed it could beused successfully for multitudinous purposes. At various times it wasemployed in the manufacture of golf-balls and, up to the First World War,its main function was in electrical insulation. In book-binding, however, itwas little short of disastrous, for it perished over time and its indiscriminateuse has led to the disintegration of so many of the books of this type.Numbers of books so bound were printed, not on ordinary paper, but onpieces of card which cannot be sewn when they come loose. The onlymethod that might be possible would be to guard the pages but, for theseparticular books, the guards would make the pages protrude beyond thebindings.

Modern glues may be used for repair but, nevertheless, the books cantake very little handling or regular opening. Such considerations for aninstitution dedicated to making its holdings easily available to students,for loan and for exhibition, mean numerous headaches both intellectualand practical for curators and conservators. The Students' Room wherethe collection may be studied is one of the busiest in the world.7 Althoughrealistically the de Beaumont items are not likely to attract heavy use fromstudents, they need particular care in presentation. The use of polystyreneslopes for handling is now obligatory for these books (and indeed for othercase-books) and hence pressure on the spines is lessened.

In addition the fine bindings have now been covered with a melinexheavy enough to be bent around the covers which precludes the need forany undesirable adhesive material to be attached to the books themselves.While the melinex is simple to remove, to permit close examination of thecovers, it is equally straightforward to replace. Its presence also acts as anencouragement to the student to handle the item with care.

When the collection was given, a decision was also taken to prepare anexhibition from its highlights.* It was also thought important to show thatthe collection had not been accepted in a vacuum by including a smallnumber of closely-related items from the main collection as a complementSome volumes from the Dalziel Archive were exhibited, together with awatercolour by Millais and a wood-block by Arthur Boyd Houghton. Theexhibition was mounted chronologically, with the earliest book datingfrom 1842 and the latest from 1894. The show was essentially an essayin art history rather than in bibliography, and the emphasis was on the

106 Paul Goldman

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f W

ater

loo]

at 1

2:33

06

Nov

embe

r 20

14

artists and the engravers. The aim wasto show that the Pre-Raphaelites, theirfollowers known as the "Idyllic School",and several other practitioners outsidethese divisions, were illustrators of realdistinction whose work in books andperiodicals has been unjustifiablyneglected by scholars. Indeed theexhibition was the first of its kind onthe British mainland since 1923.

The display cases in the exhibitiongallery were designed specifically toshow mounted prints and drawingsunframed. Containing slopingbackboards with leaning rails outside,they are ideal for their purpose. Theywere, however, never intended for thedisplay of more than an occasionalvolume. The first difficulty to beovercome in this connection was to discover if indeed it was even possible toexhibit the books in the cases. Two solutions were suggested. One was to affixperspex stands to the backboards at different levels and somehow suspend thebooks within them. The alternative was to push back the sloping boards to thevertical and place the stands in front of them along the inside of the cases.

While the former course would provide a more varied line for the eye, thelatter was the simpler and the safer for the material. In the event the second,option was adopted; this also meant that by refraining from screwing stands to'the cloth covered backboards expensive re-covering was averted. Hence acombination of practicability and financial caution won the day. A drawbackwhich proved insurmountable was the large expanse of empty space left abovethe necessarily uniform run of books along the bottom of the cases.

Once it was clear that the exhibition was more than a distant possibility,other issues rapidly presented themselves for consideration. Since the Departmentuses standard mount sizes for its prints and drawings, it is usually a relativelystraightforward matter to organise a "run-through" with blank mounts, longbefore the actual event, in order to be certain that all the items selected will fitinto the space available. For this exhibition, however, such a process wasimpossible since no stands had yet been made and the risk of moving over ahundred such fragile books from store-room to exhibition gallery was consideredunwise. Instead the selection had to be made and worked out on paper, and thevisual effect imagined.

Two unhappy outcomes needed to be avoided. The choice of too many booksfor the space would have led to the dropping of important items at the lastminute and the sense and completeness of the selection would have been

View of a caseshowing booksand drawings inthe exhibitionby George DuMaurier (1834-1896), JohnWilliam North(1842-1924)and George JohnPinwell (1842-1875).[photograph:British Museum]

Book as Museum Objects 107

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f W

ater

loo]

at 1

2:33

06

Nov

embe

r 20

14

damaged. Alternatively, too few volumes would have resulted in the display ofa meagre and unrepresentative group, while attempts to add discarded worksclose to the opening of an exhibition is a trying experience not to berecommended. An academic discussion here of the selection of the worksthemselves would be out of place since this is addressed in the publicationthat accompanied the exhibition. However, certain general principles wereparamount As far as possible the emphasis was laid on the gift as a collectionof books. Separate mounted engravings were only shown when for practicalreasons no volume was available. This was sometimes the case in respect ofthe periodicals since it was common practice of collectors in the nineteenthcentury to cut up the bulky volumes to extract the illustrations.

The greatest of the practical problems was to find a craft worker who couldmake over a hundred perspex stands in a few months. Furthermore, each onehad to be tailor-made for the particular opening of each book. Fortunately,such a specialist was available on the technical staff of the Department ofEgyptian Antiquities, and he was able to adapt his experience in constructingmounts for objects made of pottery and glass to the books. Once made, curatorialchoices over which books to exhibit, and at which opening, could not bealtered. When a stand had been moulded to shape it would fit only the volumefor which it was specifically intended, so decisions had to remain firm. Thetime taken to build each stand also meant that mistakes were serious whetherthey were made by the selector of the items or by the constructor of thestands. After a stand was made it could not be re-bent because the perspexwould snap. As the stands grew in number each one was coded so that, whenthe actual mounting of the exhibition took place, it would be a relativelysimple matter to match each book to the correct stand. But, due to their bulk,the stands had to be stored together at some distance from the collection itself.

Thus the academic and practical questions were gradually addressed althoughthere still remained others which were largely interpretational and philosophicalin nature. The collection is almost entirely comprised of "trade" books. Inother words, they were intended for ordinary and unlimited distribution throughthe usual outlets. With a few exceptions they were not published with statedlimitations, and do not seem to have been aimed at a developed audience ofcollectors. They are entirely different in character from such concepts as the"book beautiful" fostered by Morris and Ricketts in the 1890s, or the equallyprecious Uvre d'Artiste. The latter were specifically intended to be looked at asart objects and in some cases their pages of plates invite removal and separatedisplay. The books of the "Sixties", on the other hand, offer none of thesesolutions. The illustrations clearly belong with their texts even if some do notharmonise very successfully with them.

As already mentioned, it was a regular practice to destroy illustratedmagazines to extract the plates, so the exhibition offered an opportunity toreinstate such periodicals to the position of popular prominence which theyenjoyed at that time. Even when there was no choice but to exhibit one of

108 Paul Goldman

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f W

ater

loo]

at 1

2:33

06

Nov

embe

r 20

14

these removed plates it was felt important to show the whole page with theaccompanying letterpress. Throughout the display the conscious point wasreinforced that illustrations and text should be considered together, and thiswas reflected in the writing of the labels. Every label contained either aquotation from the relevant text or an explanation of exactly the point in thestory or poem which the artist had chosen to depict.

The problem of a correct balance between a literary exhibition and an artexhibition was probably not satisfactorily resolved. In the context of a museumexhibition the emphasis was more on the artists and the engravers than onthe authors, but visitors seemed to take away from the display the aspects inwhich they were most interested. The simple difficulty of only being able toshow a single opening from each book could not be overcome, but wheretwo facing illustrations were available they were shown if this made a validpoint This was frequently the case where books contained an engravedfrontispiece and title-page.

The books reclined on the stands at a gentle incline and with a couple ofexceptions did not need to be tied to them. The pages were held open withinconspicuous melinex strips cut to fit and affixed together at the back. Tissueguards were gently rolled back and kept ingeniously in position by the judicioususe of the humble plastic shirt clip.9

Related events were organised to accompany the exhibition and thesewere planned to appeal to a wider audience than its title might have suggested.Lectures and gallery talks were given throughout the period of the exhibitionand although most concentrated on the artists involved in the illustrationssome dealt with other aspects. One was devoted to the decorative bindingsand their designers while another speaker, a master, printer, gavedemonstrations of printing from original wood-blocks and copper plates ofthe period. The events programme concluded with "Words for Pictures" whichwas an afternoon of readings from the poetry and prose that had beenillustrated. The readers used actual copies of the volumes included in theexhibition borrowed from private collections. The events were consciouslyorganised to underline a central thesis behind the exhibition - that the collectionwas comprised of books and not merely pictures taken from them. In otherwords, the entire undertaking was an attempt to view the art and the literaturetogether and to stress the partnership between image and text that is ahallmark of the period.

It is impossible to say how far the exhibition was a success intellectuallyor critically, although one commentator made this telling and sympatheticremark: 'To be confronted with so many open books is forbidding but perusalpays.'10 The gift certainly provided an opportunity for the Museum to mountan exhibition devoted to books, and allowed a confrontation with some of theissues surrounding "books as objects" which I have outlined. There is little

9. The exhibitioncould not havetaken place withoutthe full co-operationand technicalexpertise ofcolleagues In theBritish Library towhom I amindebted.

10. John McEwen,'Art'. The SundayTelegraph. 17 April1994. p. 8.

Book as Museum Objects 109

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f W

ater

loo]

at 1

2:33

06

Nov

embe

r 20

14

doubt that the conservation, exhibition and interpretation of books areworthwhile activities. However, I hope I have revealed that while the first is amatter mainly of sound practice, the other two present innumerable difficulties.Some of the technical problems of showing books to the public can be partiallyovercome by skill and ingenuity, but it is in the responsible interpretation ofbooks that the true challenges lie. If books are to be exhibited they must bepresented in such a way as to prompt the viewer to read, examine andindependently evaluate the entire work. Exhibitions of books, by their verynature, can only display a tiny part of the whole, and it is a matter of concernthat nothing in the label or in the selection should dictate to the visitor whatto think. Over-interpretation or the imposition of value judgments by designersor curators are to be shunned.

While such thoughts are equally applicable to all exhibitions with anyclaim to seriousness, they are particularly apposite in the case of books. Perhapsit is because of such questions that large exhibitions devoted to books arecomparatively infrequent. Sensitively handled, there is no real reason whymore such exercises should not take place. In my view, books are just asworthy and potentially every bit as rewarding on exhibition as any other itemof material culture.

110 Paul Goldman

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uni

vers

ity o

f W

ater

loo]

at 1

2:33

06

Nov

embe

r 20

14