A Year of Bookbinding Training: reverse engineering historic book structures with Karen Hanmer

Book conservators are entrusted with the preservation of bound material into the future. With few training opportunities and no formal book conservation training programs available in the Southern Hemisphere there is a risk not only to the physical material but the culture of bookbinding, book arts and book conservation in Australia. The Fellow utilised the down-time during the Covid-19 pandemic to reach out to renown bookbinder, artist and historian Karen Hanmer (Chicago, ILL) for mentorship; and spent a year undertaking training via the Zoom platform. The Fellow procured bookbinding equipment and materials, and produced fifteen historical binding models.