Femke Coevert, book&paper conservator Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: 'Sensitive' book cradle for digitising friable media in sketchbooks

Until now drawings made in friable media, either in sketchbooks or on loose sheets of paper, have been difficult to digitise without the risk of damaging the image. The Dutch National Program for the conservation of paper heritage, Metamorfoze, employs strict guidelines for digitisation: these include the prescription of a glass plate to hold down the book at a fixed distance to the lens in order to ensure constant focus. The camera is firmly attached above the object.

However, friable media like that present on a chalk drawing would be easily damaged in this setup. Equipment presently in use either hold the pages down in an excessively rough a manner or do not keep the page in position at all and thus do not meet the Metamorfoze guidelines for preservation imaging.

The newly developed book cradle described in this poster uses a mask of two metal rulers that can be adjusted to the height of the object. Transparent polycarbonate strips gently hold the object in place by an overlap of a few millimetres. For objects with less friable media, such as a pencil drawing or a watercolour, the device can be easily adjusted and the metal mask can be changed for a glass plate.

Books that are large or that cannot be opened completely due to their construction can be photographed page per page. In this manner, a large part of the collection can be digitised in optimal conditions, with minimal risk of damaging the historical items.