Conservator closes book on 6-decade career at U-M

By David Jesse Detroit Free Press ANN ARBOR (AP) -- The book cover is tattered, with strips of material peeling away. It's no longer fit for its service to the pages inside. But that's to be expected. After all, the book -- Lex Mercatoria, a collection of merchant law -- was published in 1636. The cover might not be salvageable, but the pages inside are. A bath and some drying time later, the original pages are carefully sewn into a new leather cover, ready for generations of scholars to peruse them at the University of Michigan's Bentley Historical Library. A note in the back of the book carefully describes the previous condition of the book and the work done to restore it. The note, like many tucked in the backs of books all across U-M's campus, is signed by Jim Craven, a conservator at the university. For more than 63 years, Craven has bound books and conserved artifacts on U-M's Ann Arbor campus. Recently, the 81-year-old Craven left campus, retiring as the longest-serving staff member in the university's history. He began working part-time at U-M in 1947 while he was still in high school in a bookbindery in the basement of the Hatcher Graduate Library. In 1949, Craven, fresh out of high school, was hired full-time. The Ann Arbor native and son of a U-M bookbinder was looking for a day job while he thought about being a professional singer. "I kind of let that slide," he said earlier this week in his spacious and neat shop in the basement of the Bentley. Hammers of all sizes, files and a variety of other tools lined the walls and shelves around his work space. He left U-M in 1951 to serve in the Army in Korea and Japan, before returning in 1953. He rebound books and bound magazines, learning from masters at the craft. "It wasn't unusual to have more than 100 years of experience there," he recalled. Those men "came out of the Depression and had the mind-set that if you had a job, you kept it. For a worker to get in 50 years wasn't extraordinary." He was involved in much in those early years, including printing the notices touting the historic 1955 polio vaccine trial announcement at Rackham Auditorium. In the mid-1970s, he moved to the Bentley Library. More recently, he split his work among several U-M libraries. He has worked on books dating to the 1300s and considers restoration work his favorite. "I like the repair work. You can take a very old book and, with lots of care, bring it up-to-date so that someone can use it again." He said the older books are actually easier to work with than books of the 1920s and '30s, which were printed on more acidic paper. "It loses flexibility," he said. He has worked on unique books -- including one displayed in a collection of his work at the Bentley that has a series of bellows in the guts of the book with strings leading out of it, making a harmonica-sounding noise when the strings are pulled. "I can't keep track of what we've done in my head because this is what you have to be focused on," he said, pointing to books awaiting repair. "You can't approach it thinking that one thing is more valuable than another. You have to concentrate on what's valuable in the book you are working on." Those who use his materials note him as an artist. "Your work is that of a master craftsman," Bentley Director Francis Blouin Jr. said in a recent letter honoring Craven. "Whether bookbinding, paper repair, box creation or any number of other projects, the work was always impeccable to the very highest standards, worthy of the great treasures entrusted to us by the various libraries at the university." Craven said he has enjoyed his time working with students and is thankful for administrative support, but he was ready to go. He retired to spend time with family and his golden retriever, but he says he might still drop in now and then to work on a project. He sees a need for the skills of those who work in the shop with him, even in an era of digitization. "We still want to see the original. People want to see the real thing." Published: Wed, Jan 23, 2013