Antiquarian Bookbinding and Ancient Book Arts

Bookbinding by Paul Tronson
A'Cambridge'panelled calf binding
Using 3 vegetable dyes.

People ask "Why do you do antiquarian book restoration
when nowadays people are more likely to sit at a computer
than read a book?"

In 'When Things Start To Think.' by Neil Gersenfield, he makes the point that 'If the book had been invented after the laptop, it would be seen as a very clever invention'.

It is considered 'retro' to say that 'You don't like computers and would rather read a book.' and there are very polarised debates between people arguing for digital books and people arguing for printed books who consider the digital book advocates illiterate heathens who don't know the value of learning, reading and writing.

Books are remarkable, you can open a book instantly, you can rapidly flip the pages, you can drop it and it continues working. (Although, please don't drop this one.) It doesn't need any maintenance except once every hundred years or so and you can view it from any angle and almost any light. As Professor Gerhsenfeld, says 'The one thing a laptop can do is change so that leads to the question of how do we bring that to the book?'