Welcome

Thank you for visiting our site. At bookobscure we specialise in conservation of books, photographs, paper and other organic based materials as well as bespoke bookbinding and box making. We provide a uniquely tailored and professional service for each individual object or collection from Pembrokeshire. 

Our studio and work was featured in “Curious Almanac – Restoring the Royal Society’s medieval calendar | The Royal Society” video produced by Royal Society.

Please kindly ignore my poor public talk skill and enjoy the beauty of Almanac and Pembrokeshire country side.

We undertake:

* Practical treatment on/off site

* Collection survey

* Digitisation

* Boxes/Housing Solution and Collection Care

* Exhibition installation advice and display mount 

* Project management

Examples of our past and ongoing projects will be updated soon.

We look forward to hearing from you. Please email your enquiry to: sayaka@bookobscure.co.uk

Conservation

At bookobscure we undertake a wide range of conservation and restoration work.

The size of the project we undertake ranges from one object to a whole collection. We are experienced in working with a variety of institutions and private individuals in the nature and size of their collections. Please do not hesitate to get in touch for an initial consultation.

Collection survey / Condition assessment / Audit

A condition assessment is usually carried out in preparation for practical treatment. However, in some cases, this can be conducted independently for the purposes, such as funding applications or initial investigation into the physical and environmental condition of collections. We provide a full survey report on completion of our assessment, which includes advise of how to improve the current storage condition and accessibility.

Collection care and Housing solution

Correct storage condition is considered as the prime priority in current conservation strategies (Preventive Conservation) as money and time spent on physical treatment can be wasted if objects are placed back in unsuitable environment. Preventive conservation involves improvement and upkeep of storage condition, which covers a wide range of subjects from controlling air quality, room temperature and relative humidity level, integrated pest management system (IPM) to employing suitable materials for creation of storage room, shelving and housing. It is a huge area to tackle and often very time consuming and costly process to achieve every aspect to the highest standard. However, the improvement can be made over time as resource becomes available. Therefore, it is important to approach the project holistically from its inception so limited resource can be wisely invested for future. We can provide you with advice in environmental condition as well as bespoke archival housing and boxing solutions. We are a specialist maker in a customer made box that require complex structure or simply when something has to be made well.

For enquiry, please email: sayaka@bookobscure.co.uk