Hollander's

An Interview with Author, Publisher, Teacher, and MLibrary’s Senior Conservator Cathleen Baker

August 17, 2011 at 7:54 pm Leave a comment

On August 21st, Cathleen Baker will be teaching Adhesives and How to Use Them at the Hollander’s School of Book and Paper Arts. Cathleen is currently the Senior Paper Conservator for the University of Michigan Library, and has received an MFA in Book Arts and a PhD in Mass Communication from the University of Alabama. She is also the author of several books and founder of The Legacy Press.

I recently had the opportunity to visit Cathleen at her workplace at the University of Michigan to discuss her upcoming class, as well as her intriguing life and career.

Hollander’s: What are your primary responsibilities as MLibrary’s Senior Conservator?
Cathleen Baker: I’m primarily responsible for what we call “unbound materials” or “flat materials”. I do occasionally work on books, but I mostly do prints, drawings, archival materials, documents and maps.

I do a lot of conservation of rare maps. Conservation is basically stabilizing material so that it doesn’t deteriorate chemically – and also safeguard it in ways to make it safer to handle and use as a research material. We are a research library, not a museum.

Hollander’s: Concerning adhesives, what have you observed as being the most common mistake bookbinders and book artists make?
Cathleen Baker: I think the real problem that everybody has – whether they’re bookbinders or conservators – is that you tend to use a couple of things that you feel very comfortable with…and especially that your teacher taught you about or your master taught you.

And that’s not to say that you can’t do a really good job with those – let’s say – two adhesives, but it seems to me that knowing about more than one or two kinds of adhesives and really understanding the properties of – let’s say – four or five adhesives… understanding all their properties and ways… whether they’re stable adhesives or not… under which conditions are they stable…. and then being able to apply an adhesive in a certain situation which is going to be the best choice that you can make.

I think all those things are very important – and adhesives are one of the most critical materials in the book arts. They’re probably the least well understood. And yet, they’re used all the time. It seems to me that anyone interested in the book arts, or in making any kind of art or craft that is a seriously creative person and who has a modicum of curiosity about materials should come to a workshop on adhesives where they can get the basic information.

Hollander’s: In addition to being a book artist and paper conservator, you have also become an author and publisher. What stands out for you as the most impelling point in your career?
Cathleen Baker: I have to say probably the publication of my book From the Hand to the Machine—Nineteenth-century American Paper and Mediums: Technologies, Materials, and Conservation because it is a book that I wanted to write for many decades, having taught in a conservation program for fifteen years without the benefit of a text book. I’ve always wanted to write a text book for paper and book conservation students because there isn’t one – even now – and has never been one. And so my goal for a long, long time was to write such a book.

I think my experiences as a book artist – if you will – a paper conservator, the fact that I have done research and written books before, and then being my own publisher…. being my own publisher really helped me because… nobody was going to tell me what I could and could not do.

To register for this and other classes, visit Hollanders.com or call 734.741.7531.

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