Bindings of Old Printed European Books from the Collection of Kolyvan-Voskresensk Mining Plants in SPSTL SB RAS

Studies of bindings of old printed European books have recently attracted considerable attention of not only book historians, but also art historians. The relevance and novelty of the work are determined by the corpus of sources chosen for the study for the first time. It is the collection of old printed European books of the Kolyvan-Voskresensk Mining Plants (KVMP) in the State Public Scientific and Technological Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPSTL SB RAS) and its systematization and structuring of modern data on the cover materials of bindings. They are presented in the collection in both one-piece and composite versions. The purpose of the article is to classify the bindings of old printed European books from the collection of SPSTL SB RAS based on the characteristics of the cover materials: paper, leather and their combinations. The topic of the work is in line with the bindings research of the time characterized by the transition from the medieval traditions of their creation to the traditions of Modern times. The main result of the study is the classification, which includes sections corresponding to the names of the identified coating materials.: 1) paste paper; 2) paste paper + unpainted paper; 3) paste paper + leather; 4) marble paper + unpainted paper; 5) marble paper + leather; 6) unpainted paper + leather; 7) lather. The coating methods are noted in the descriptions of the instances optionally. Additional components of bindings – protective, flyleaf, flyleaf, etc. – are mentioned only occasionally in the article, as they require special study. In the collection of foreign publications of the late 17th and early 19th centuries, the predominance of fairly simple but good–quality bindings of the 18th and early 19th centuries is established. from modern materials to the collection of covers – leather and paper. Isolated examples of primitive versions of paper covering material are noted. Bindings that have retained the ownership characteristics of books from private libraries have been identified. Bindings with signs of belonging to workshops of Altai mining plants are presented. The absence of ornate and luxurious bindings in the collection is revealed, which, in our opinion, is due to the role of the book collection of the KVMP as an integral part of the infrastructure of the mining complex of Altai, focused mainly on solving practical problems of mining production. Theoretical and practical significance of the work is as follows. 1) The topic of cover materials of books from the collection/ collection of the KVMP is emphasized in the context of discussing modern problems of characterization, representation and description of bindings of the XVIII–XIX centuries. 2) The proposed classification can be used to describe the bindings of old–print European books from other collections of the KVMP. 3) The results of the study allow us to raise the question of creating a binding database of the entire surviving part – both domestic and foreign – of the KVMP book collection, which it will make possible, in addition to describing the cover materials, to include information on all the components of the bindings, the specifics of their technique and to become one of the key sources for the reconstruction of the composition of this unique library in Siberia. 

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