Watch a 106-Yr-Previous Wizard of Oz Ebook Get Magically Restored … By Slicing the Ebook’s Backbone, Washing Pages & Recoloring Illustrations

Writer, edu­ca­tor and e book restora­tion skilled Sophia Bogle is in a con­stant race towards time. Her mis­sion: to res­cue and restore ill-treat­ed books earlier than their lam­en­ta­ble con­di­tions can con­signal them to the land­fill.

To the untrained eye, many of those vol­umes seem past restore, however Bogle has nerves of metal, preter­nat­ur­al persistence, sur­gi­cal pre­ci­sion, and over thir­ty years of expe­ri­ence.

Within the Wired video above, she makes use of a 106-year-old first edi­tion of Frank L. Baum’s The Misplaced Princess of Oz to demon­strate a few of the steps of her craft — from lower­ting open an previous e book’s backbone and wash­ing soiled pages to restore­ing tears and recol­or­ing illus­tra­tions.

Pri­or to tak­ing the ultimate step, she scrawls a hid­den mes­sage on the again­ing mate­r­i­al of the backbone:

I do love the truth that there’s the sto­ry within the e book, there’s the sto­ry of the restora­tion of the e book, there’s the sto­ry of who has owned the e book and now, I’m simply in there only a lit­tle bit extra.

This play­ful little bit of hard-won license is a far cry from some shady restora­tion prac­tices she males­tions in an inter­view on the Wel­come to Lit­er­ary Ash­land weblog, in an try to arm the gen­er­al pub­lic with instruments for spot­ting poten­tial fraud:

I’m not positive that there’s any­factor on the earth that may­not be twist­ed with evil intent…Swapping out pages with pub­lish­ers infor­ma­tion in an effort to make the e book seem like a extra valu­ready edi­tion. Scratch­ing out/eradicating num­bers or phrases for a similar pur­pose. And final­ly, swap­ping out pages to insert the writer’s sig­na­ture. None of these issues may be performed with­out intent to defraud and it’s the intent that mat­ters most. 

Bogle plies her commerce utilizing all kinds of spe­cial­ized professional­fes­sion­al equip­ment — two stitching frames, a job backer, a gold fin­ish­ing range, a nip­ping press, a Kwikprint stamp­ing machine and draw­ers filled with stamps and dies — however she additionally presents free and low-cost vir­tu­al e book restore cours­es to these whose binderies have but to be estab­lished.

One reward for Kick­starter again­ers who helped her pub­lish Ebook Restora­tion Unveiled: An Essen­tial Information for Bib­lio­philes was a bind-it-your­self print­ready pdf of the e book.

Reat­tach­ing a paperback’s cov­er or deodor­iz­ing a musty previous e book might rep­re­despatched the extent of your palms on impulse.

Ebook lovers who’ve each the time and the tem­pera­ment for e book­bind­ing, in addition to Bogle’s pas­sion for pre­serv­ing cul­ture one e book at a time, may con­sid­er apply­ing for a Save Your Books schol­ar­ship.

See extra of Sophia Bogle’s e book restora­tions on her Save Your Books YouTube chan­nel.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

How one can Res­cue a Moist, Dam­aged Ebook: A Helpful Visu­al Primer

How Obses­sive Artists Col­orize Previous Pho­tographs & Restore the True Col­ors of the Previous

The Artwork of Restor­ing a 400-Yr-Previous Paint­ing: A 5-Minute Primer

Watch the Painstak­ing and Nerve-Rack­ing Means of Restor­ing a Draw­ing by Michelan­ge­lo

– Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and writer, most up-to-date­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Well-known: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and Cre­ative, Not Well-known Activ­i­ty Ebook. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.