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Structure & Materials: Find out more

Researcher
Reading Objects in Special Collections - Introduction
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Brotherton Collection Safe TRA Westminster 1480 final leaves
Reading objects in Special Collections - the importance of structure and materials
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Letter illustrated with various pen and ink sketches.
Reading Objects in Special Collections - handwriting
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Books on shelf
Reading Objects in Special Collections - Context
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Strong Room for. 4to 1488 AVI armorial bookplate of J Henryson Caird
Importance of provenance
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Leeds Student 24th November 1980
Reading Objects in Special Collections - Content
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When we date objects we need to look carefully at their different parts. The need for well-used books to be re-bound, or the decision to rebind for aesthetic reasons, means that the binding of a book might be much newer than the pages it contains, and it is therefore important to consider the elements separately.

Objects have histories, and the way they have been treated over time can also give us further information about their usage. An object may have been heavily used or left on a shelf, or it might have been damaged, and then altered, repaired or rebound.

These factors can offer clues about how the object has been valued at different points during its history. Well-thumbed or annotated books have been well used at certain points in their history. This can highlight the centrality of the books in the everyday lives of their owners.