Christopher Clarkson’s Pioneering Work in the Development of the Conservation Book Support

ABSTRACT By developing a modular book support system for the safe handling of open books being consulted in library reading rooms Christopher Clarkson created for the first time an awareness for the necessary support of open books. He thus contributed crucial, pioneering work for the development of conservation book supports. With Clarkson's pioneering work as the starting point, the author, together with Michaela Brand, book conservator at the German Historical Museum in Berlin, researched in a multiyear project the construction of book supports for open books in exhibitions. The project was published in 2019 as a handbook on conservation book supports and supplies information about their construction, function, manufacture, and use. The large variety of conservation book supports that has been developed since Clarkson's first idea makes clear that a single book support model cannot fulfil all the requirements that arise over time and in different places for conservation book supports. Over the years countless different, functional book support models have been developed that today are available for every exhibition design and every budget. A book support is optimal when it fulfils the essential, identified requirements of its uses.