Report of the 2006 Guild of Book Worker's Centennial Celebration

New York City, NY
October 11 - 15, 2004

Reported by Eric Alstrom, Collections Conservator

It is not every year that an organization gets to celebrate its 100th birthday, but I was fortunate to be able to attend the Guild of Book Worker's Centennial Celebration. The even was held in New York City, where the Guild was founded in 1906. For many years the Guild was mainly centered around New York, but now it has nearly 900 members from across the country and around the world. There are ten regional chapters in the United States and workshops, exhibits and other events take place in each region.

I arrived in NYC one day early to attend the Board of Director's meeting. I am the Guild's Communications Chair and in charge of maintaining the GBW website, maintaining the email lists the board and the general membership uses to communicate between conferences, and take care of PR announcements, for which there were many in the months proceding the Centennial Celebration.

With the business of the board over, on Thursday we were treated to library and conservation lab tours around the city. Unfortunately due to the limited amount of time and the size of the city, we could only attend one. I attended a tour of the conservation lab at Columbia University. It is always good to see what other labs are doing and how they handle some of the same problems we have here at MSU. Their lab is similarly staffed, with one head conservator, one special collections conservator, and two conservation technicians who handle most of the general collections materials. They also have two to three student employees (where as our lab has ten to twelve!). As is often the case, the Columbia University conservation lab is also in the basement (many labs are) but they do have a bit more window space than we do. Their square footage is smaller and the lab feels a bit cramped, but the space is well used and is very functional.

On Thursday evening the conference officially began with an opening reception at the Grollier Club, a New York City social club focused on book collecting. There were three book exhibits to see: one of miniature books; and two sponsored by the Guild, which included a retrospective exhibit of past member's work and an exhibit of current member's work (which will be at MSU in the Special Collections reading room in December and January). The level of craftsmanship and artistic design in all the exhibits was exquisite. It is quite inspirational to see such fine work on display and to talk to many of the binders who were present, many of whom are friends of mine.

On Friday and Saturday the conference proceedings were underway at the New York Academy of Medicine. This stately building right on Fifth Avenue across from Central Park was the perfect setting. Upstairs was a vendors area where sellers of bookbinding and conservation materials was located. There was also another bookbinding exhibit on display, which were all books collected by a single person over her life time, including the books she bound since she too was a binder. Downstairs was a large auditorium where the talks were delivered.

The theme of the conference was "The Art of the Book in America: 1906-2006," which focused on the history of the Guild in a very loose fashion. The first day were talks about the first fifty year's of the Guild, fine binding and printing in America, the history of American papermaking and marbling, the development of the modern conservation movement, and finally the emergence of the "book arts" during the 1970s. The second day focused on the various regions with presentations by the GBW Chapters. These included New York, New England, Midwest, Potomac Valley, Texas, the Rocky Mountain Region, and the West Coast. Since this is our centennial year, it was good to pause and reflect on where we have been before we set off for our next 100 years.

Other activities included a reception at both the Center for Book Arts (the first center devoted to the book arts in America) and at TALAS, one of the vendors I purchase many of our lab supplies from. On Saturday night, we boarded the "Spirit of New York" for a dinner cruise around the tip of Manhattan and around the Statue of Liberty. Besides being very chilly to stand outside as we sailed under the Statue of Liberty, we all had a wonderful time eating and chatting and watching the awarding of prizes and the always-anticipated GBW raffle (which includes items donated by the vendors and other book related memorabilia).

Sunday was a long day trying to get to the airport and then sitting around waiting during layovers and struggling to stay awake. But it was all worth it to be able to attend a very informative conference and such a wonderful event.