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Book Conservation Services

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Australia
Adelaide, SA
Book Conservation Services

Workshops in bookbinding and conservation skills. Internships. Rare book and archives conservation services. Conservation collaboration.

Qualified bookbinders and conservators, bookbinding leather specialist.

11/05/2026

Highlights from Masterclass: Conservation of Cloth Bindings at the Wattle Street studio of BCS. The workshop Tutor, Karen Vidler, would like to thank participants Ellie, Dan, Shannon, Grace, Helena and Michelle for their enthusiasm, skill and good humour during the masterclasses.
Image 1: Identifying book cloth fibre colouring - dyed and/or pigmented fibres.
Image 2: Spot test for starch on cotton fibres.
Image 3: Identifying cotton and linen fibres in book cloth.
Image 4: Resizing washed unbleached cotton and linen for conservation repairs.
Image 5: Consolidating and infilling endcap tears to a cloth case binding.

21/04/2026

This month Principal Conservator from BCS, Karen Vidler, returned to deliver another 4 day workshop at the NSW Guild of Craft Bookbinders. This years topic was Repair of Cloth Bindings ( with basic paper repairs).

Karen wants to thank all 10 participants for their enthusiasm, skilled bench work and courage in trying new treatments and repair techniques for cloth-case bookbindings. The repairs produced in this group was very impressive.

Image 1: The group treating weak areas of covering cloth with 2% solution of Klucel G in Isopropanol - observing good PPE practices.

Image 2: Some of the participants resizing washed unbleached cotton with 2% solution of Methyl Cellulose in deionised water, ready for toning with high permanence acrylic paints.

06/04/2026

A final post about our first intern for 2026 William Johnson. A selection of highlights from his training under the supervision of Principal Conservator Karen Vidler.
About the images
Image 1: Partly attaching an inner hinge repair before the board reattachment using textile sutures.
Image 2: Testing ink inscriptions for the presence of free iron ions.
Image 3: Pared and dyed repair calf for endcap and corner repairs.
Image 4: Shaping infills for missing areas of marbled siding papers.
Image 5: Attaching a tricky endcap repair in calf leather.
Image 6: Shaping and attaching infills to damaged title and volume spine labels.
Image 7: The completed conservation project. Culmination of weeks of examination, testing, consolidation, facing, board reattachment, tricky infills in paper and leather, learning new skills, taking much needed micro-breaks...
Thank you William!

13/03/2026

After another week at BCS I am drawing ever closer to completing my first project. In order to do so, some time was spent at my accommodation practicing my leather paring in preparation to repair some corners and endcaps. Stay tuned for more progress updates to come.

06/03/2026

As we come to the end of another action packed week at BCS, I would like to share two of the most satisfying treatment stages thus far. The first four photos show the process of dying the leather for cap and corner repairs, and the end result, a beautiful and rich colouration if I do say so myself. The funal two photos show me performing stain reduction. It is an incredibly satisfying process to see the stains reduce on the item and appear as yellow marks on the blotter.

27/02/2026

Hello all after another amazing week at BCS some more progress was made on my first project, however, it is the knowledge and skill development that has been the most noticable. Most notably so in my ability to colour match repair paper, as seen in the last three pictures. Being an area of conservation that I definitely needed some more experience and while not a hundred percent confident just yet, massive strides were made towards this goal today.

19/02/2026

Hello all I am Will, following graduation from the Masters of Cultural Material Conservation at UniMelb, I have been fortunate enough to secure an internship at BCS here in Adelaide. Here I am evaluating the degradation and loss of paper sizing under UV light for one of my two key projects during my time at BCS. Stay tuned for more updates, photos and follow me on my internship journey.

19/12/2025

Time to say goodbye to the bindery 😭
I've had a fantastic final week, with a visit to Union Street Printmakers for letterpress training as one of the highlights. Here in the bindery, I've made repairs to the leather binding of the Proeschel - didn't quite manage to fully complete the conservation treatment, but it's in a good spot for Senior Conservator Karen to add the final touches.

Photo 1: Letterpress printing on a 1850s hand press. Thanks Damien for a very fun day!
2: Multitasking - consolidating delaminating book corners on one bench while colour matching repair leather pieces on the other.
3: An imposing edifice used to help return the shape of the spine while adhesive is added to strengthen it.
4: Attaching a leather corner repair.
5: Attaching a leather cap repair. (I talked more about these leather repairs in an earlier post!)
6: The current state of the Proeschel - peep those new corners and endcaps!

And that brings me to the end of my time here at BCS. Bindery, you will be missed. Eternal thanks to Karen, who has taught me so much and ensured I had a wonderful time during this project, and many thanks to ADFAS Yarra, for their support of this internship position.

12/12/2025

Hello, South Australia!
This week was more complicated paper repairs, with finishing up repairs to the foldout maps, infilling small losses, and reattaching loose pages. Only one week left to go at the bindery (sad emoji, cry emoji). The end is almost in sight, but I'll be sad to leave this little haven.

Photo 1: Setting up interleaving layers to work on the map of South Australia.
2: Title page infills using the piece of Mylar that shows alllll the funny repair shapes I've been making.
3. Layered repairs in one of the book's torn guard structures.
4. Tidying and flattening a guard with humidification in preparation for the reattachment of the foldout.

05/12/2025

This week we're juggling repairs and working across a large scale! Proeschel is full of hidden surprises - fokdout tables and maps, each with their own issues to tackle...

Photo 1: Snapshot of my workspace, with humidification & flattening in place on the first bench, and tear repairs along the book's foredge on the bench behind.
2: Starting to work on the largest foldout map in the book.
3, 4 & 5: Placing repairs along one of the folds and making sure it gets sandwiched between the paper and cloth layers of the map... A delicate and to me, nervewracking job.

Many thanks to Karen for not only being an amazing teacher, but also being the best instagram boyfriend (see also: personal photographer, paparazzo).

28/11/2025

POV you're Karen:

I've started work this week on Proeschel's Atlas of Australasia, 1863 - and I'm hard at it, as Karen, my supervisor, can attest.

Photo 1: At work at the bench across from Karen, humidifying and removing glue residues.
2: Removing the degraded and powdery spine lining.
3: Cleaning! You can see how much dirt is being picked up on the smoke sponges in comparison to the clean one in the middle.
4: Detaching a foldout table from where it's guarded into the book, in preparation for further repairs.

Address

Malvern
Adelaide, SA
5061

Opening Hours

Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm

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