28 August – 1 September and 4 – 8 September
Barcelona, Spain
Deadline for applications: 30 June 2023
Successful applicants to be contacted by mid July 2023
The 2023 Ligatus Summer School is co-organised with the Saint Catherine Foundation and it will take place in Barcelona, Spain, in collaboration with the University of Barcelona with visits to the Cathedral Archives.
Background
The contribution that bindings can make to our understanding of the history and culture of the book is often neglected, but they can offer insights into the study of readership, the book trade, and the provenance of books that are often not available elsewhere. In order to realise this potential, it is important to learn not only the history of the craft but also how to record what is seen in a consistent and organised way. Librarians, cataloguers, conservators, book historians, book collectors and all scholars who work with early books can benefit from understanding the structure and materials of the bindings they encounter and knowing how to record and describe them.
Clear descriptions of bindings are invaluable for the management of library collections, pursuing academic research and making informed decisions about conservation. They are also important for digitisation projects, as they can radically enrich the potential of image and text metadata. It is our belief that bindings should be seen as an integral part of the book, without which our understanding of the history and use of books is often greatly circumscribed.
The main purpose of the Summer School is to uncover the possibilities latent in the detailed study of bookbinding. Both courses offered in this Summer School look at bindings from different geographical areas and with a different approach.
Week 1A (28 – 30 August): Linked Data for bookbinding description
Tutor: Dr Athanasios Velios
This course will be taught by Dr Athanasios Velios and will deal with the methodologies and techniques that can be used to record bookbindings. Sessions will focus on: a) Linked Data, the semantic web and the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM); b) standardised vocabularies for book descriptions (Language of Bindings and SKOS); c) the development of database schemas for book descriptions; d) mapping bookbinding description databases to CIDOC-CRM and publishing Linked Data. This course will consist of a combination of presentations and hands-on workshops. Participants will require to bring their own laptops in order to follow the hands-on workshops. Instructions on the necessary software will be circulated in advance of the course. Participants will work in pairs during the hands-on workshops.
Week 1B (30 August – 1 September): Eastern Mediterranean Bookbinding Structures
Tutor: Dr Georgios Boudalis
This course will focus on the major structural and decorative features of the different bookbinding traditions that have evolved in the eastern Mediterranean – including the Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian and Islamic – with special focus on the Byzantine and post-Byzantine bookbindings. The aim is to look closely at the different components - sewing of the bookblocks, board attachments, endbands, decoration, fastenings etc - and follow the evolution of these closely related bookbindings, in order to establish their similarities and differences. The course will consist of six 90-minute presentations and demonstrations of real bookbindings from the University's collection.
Week 2 (4 – 8 September): European Bookbinding 1450-1830
Tutor: Professor N. Pickwoad
This course will follow European bookbinding from the end of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, using the bindings themselves to illustrate the aims and intentions of the binding trade. A large part of the course will be devoted to the identification of both broad and detailed distinctions within the larger groups of plain commercial bindings and the possibilities of identifying the work of different countries, cities, even workshops without reference to finishing tools. The identification and significance of the different materials used in bookbinding will be examined, as well as the classification of bookbindings by structural type, and how these types developed through the three centuries covered by the course. The development of binding decoration will be touched on, but will not form a major part of the discussion.
The course consists of ten 90-minute sessions with Powerpoint presentations (over 800 images will be shown).
Course Fees
Week 1A (Velios): €250
Week 1B (Boudalis): €250
Week 1 (both courses): €450
Week 2 (Pickwoad): €450
Please note that course fees cover tuition only. Participants are responsible for arranging their own travel, visas, insurance, accommodation, meals etc. during the School.
The Rare Book and Manuscript Collection of the University of Barcelona's Learning and Research Resources Centre (CRAI)
The importance of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library derives from the size and quality of the collection it houses. Following the passing of ecclesiastical confiscation laws in 1835-1836, the monastery and convent libraries in the Province of Barcelona were brought together at the University to create a major public library, with numerous important manuscripts, incunabula and printed books dating from the late 15th century to 1820.
Today, these items form the core of the Rare Book and Manuscript collection situated in the old university building, which also contains a collection of engravings and parchment documents, as well as individual donations, such as the Grewe collection on food and gastronomy.
About the city of Barcelona
Barcelona is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous city of Spain. The city is famous for its architecture but also hosts various library collections including the Biblioteca de Catalunya and the Historical Archive of the city of Barcelona.
About the Saint Catherine Foundation
The Saint Catherine Foundation and its related organizations in the USA and Switzerland support conservation work at Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt. The foundations in London, New York, and Geneva collaborate with leading universities, museums, libraries and other institutions on cultural, educational and fundraising events and initiatives in Europe, the US and beyond. Partners include the Metropolitan Museum (New York), the British Library (London), State Hermitage Museum (St Petersburg), and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (Alexandria). The Foundation has been collaborating with Ligatus researchers over the past 20 years.
About Ligatus
Ligatus undertakes work in the history of bookbinding, book conservation, archiving and the application of digital technology to the exploration of these fields. Ligatus is host to the Language of Bindings (LoB) thesaurus of bookbinding terms and the Linked Conservation Data project.