| Summary: | Since the autumn of 2021 the Bodleian’s Conservation and Collection Care team, in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of the Book, has been undertaking a project exploring the expected and unexpected places textiles appear in our library collections. The scope of this project has been wide, from embroidered bindings to endbands, and tapestries to t-shirts. As a team of book, paper and preventive conservators, textiles and how best to care for them is something we know less about, and thanks to a very generous donation to our department we have been able to embark of this project and focus on the training and development of our team in this area. As part of this project, and supported by teams from across the Bodleian including the CSB, Public Engagement and Communication teams, we have hosted a series of free public online talks, which have brought together conservators, curators and book artists working within the Bodleian, GLAM, and beyond to explore this topic further and engage and include the wider public in this fascinating conversation. We have also been able to create many links with conservation colleagues from across disciplines and countries to help us explore different aspects of this topic (such as housing and different conservation treatments), and with the support of the Public Engagement team we have hosted several outreach events with students, local community groups and academics focussing on exploring different areas of textiles in our collections. This project has not only been an incredibly useful opportunity to develop the specialist knowledge and practical skills of the Bodleian’s conservation team, but it has also given us many opportunities to work with other Bodleian colleagues and engage with groups beyond the library, and we would love to be able to share this work with the wider library community through a poster about this project.
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