[EKStationers] Fwd: [EXLIBRIS-L] Ligatus summer school: Identifying and recording bookbinding structures for conservation and cataloguing.

[woodwindy]

Forwarding just in case anyone's up for a truly spectacular trip -- or
wants to dream about one, more likely. :)

        -Sabine

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Athanasios Velios <a.velios at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 12:57 PM
Subject: [EXLIBRIS-L] Ligatus summer school: Identifying and recording
bookbinding structures for conservation and cataloguing.
To: EXLIBRIS-L at listserv.indiana.edu


Please find attached information about this summer school.

Ligatus Summer School: Identifying and recording bookbinding structures
for conservation and cataloguing.

www.ligatus.org.uk/summerschool

Thessaloniki (Greece), Aristotle University Library and Museum of
Byzantine Culture.

5-9 and 12-16 October 2009

In its 4th year and following the success of the courses in Volos and
Patmos, the Ligatus Summer School is organised this year in
collaboration with the Aristotle University and the Museum of Byzantine
Culture in Thessaloniki. It is taking place mainly in the city of
Thessaloniki with visits to the important monastic libraries of Mount
Athos, and the monasteries of Ormylia and Meteora.

About the course:

Conservators, librarians, book historians and scholars who work with
books, need to understand the structure of their bindings in order to be
able to describe them for the needs of cataloguing and historical
research as well as for making appropriate decisions on issues relevant
to conservation treatment, housing, access, etc. Such descriptions of
the bindings are important for digitisation projects as they
dramatically enrich the potential of image and text metadata. This is
particularly important for collections of manuscripts and early printed
books.

The purpose of the course is to uncover the possibilities latent in the
detailed study of bookbinding and it mainly focuses on books which have
been bound between the 15th and the early 19th century. The two courses
offered in this summer school focus upon two different broad categories
of bookbindings: a) the Byzantine and post-Byzantine and b) the western
European. The technical and decorative details, as well as the way
bookbindings evolved through time and space will be discussed during the
individual sessions. Part of the school will be dedicated to the
construction of an XML data structure (schema) for recording
bookbindings.

The courses will consist of both lectures and hands-on sessions using
the collections of the Aristotle University Library. A visit to the
libraries of the monasteries of Mount Athos will also be included for
male participants and to the monasteries of Ormylia and Meteora for
female participants.

The language of the courses is English and they are open to 12
individuals from relevant fields per week. Although the courses can be
attended individually, participants are encouraged to attend both
courses in order to get a more complete understanding of the issues
discussed, through the comparison of the major categories of
bookbindings considered each week. Since these are not beginner-level
courses, the participants are expected to be familiar with bookbinding
terminology and have a basic knowledge of the history of book production
in the period under discussion. A basic understanding of database use is
also desirable for those who will attend the course on the first week.

Description of courses:

Week 1, Tutors Dr. G. Boudalis and Dr. A. Velios:

This five-day course will be divided in two interconnected sessions. The
first session, run by Dr. Georgios Boudalis, will focus upon the major
structural and decorative features of the Byzantine and post-Byzantine
bookbindings and their evolution in time and space. The relation of
these bindings with the early bindings of the Coptic and other Eastern
Mediterranean cultures will be discussed, during lectures, slide-shows
and hands-on sessions. This session will centre the influences and
comparisons of these different bookbindings. It will consist of eight
90-minute computer presentations supplemented by hands-on sessions in
the library of the Aristotle University.

The second session will be run by Dr. Athanasios Velios and will deal
with the data management and storage of bookbinding descriptions.
Alongside a brief reference to the relational databases this session
will mainly involve discussions on a) the semantic web and XML, b)
schemas and terminologies for bookbinding descriptions, c) commercial
and open source software options for XML documents and d) methodologies
and workflows for collection surveys. A large part of this session will
be devoted to the actual development and use of an XML schema for
recording binding structures. This session will consist of two
90-minutes presentations and eight 90-minutes hands-on workshops. Basic
knowledge of database use is desirable for this course.

Week 2, 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 slides (over 800
slides will be shown). Actual examples of bindings are shown and
discussed to supplement the slides in separate sessions in the
University Library.

Because of the support from Ligatus, the Aristotle University and the
Museum of Byzantine Culture, we are able to reduce the cost of the
course for this year to 350 Euros per week excluding meals and
accommodation. The price includes transportation to and from the
monasteries of Mount Athos, Meteora and Ormylia, reading material, use
of computers and coffee and refreshments during the breaks. A number of
accommodation options will be provided to the participants. A detailed
schedule of the courses can be sent upon request. Applications,
including a short CV should be sent to Ewelina Warner
(e.warner at camberwell.arts.ac.uk) marked in the message subject: 'Ligatus
Summer School' or apply online at www.ligatus.org.uk/summerschool . A
reading list will be sent to those who will attend the courses in
advance. The participants will be contacted by the end of June. For
those attending the course at least 50% of the course fee will have to
be paid by the end of July.

Thessaloniki is the capital of the Macedonian region, co-capital of
Greece and the second largest cultural, economic and political centre in
Greece. Thessaloniki was a hugely important centre during Byzantium and
the city still preserves many important monuments from that period. The
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki is one of the largest universities
in Greece covering a wide range of subjects. The University library
holds a unique collection of books from the 10th to the 20th centuries
which makes it ideal for the study of historic bookbinding. The Museum
of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki is an award winning museum with a
state of the art facilities and a excellent collection covering all
aspects of Byzantine life.

Ligatus is a research unit of the University of the Arts London with
particular interest to historic bookbinding, book conservation,
archiving and the application of digital technology to these fields.
Ligatus’s main research projects currently include the assessment of the
condition of the books in the St Catherine’s Monastery Library in Sinai
and the development of and English-Greek glossary of bookbinding terms.