Binding, cover, dust jacket and other forms document’s protection as a museum object (on the example of collection of Department of Publishing Art at National Museum in Wrocław)

Abstract

The publishing art is not very popular part of Polish museology. In this kind of art only hand-made covers are perceived as an object of sufficient artistic or historical value (these are the main features qualifying an object into museum collection) to be collected in museum. This is because it is a product of handicraft, which history of collecting in museology has a long tradition. Meanwhile, the museum collection oriented towards binding, paperback, hardback, dust jacket etc. and their sketches and projects could have important role for preservation of bibliological cultural heritage. For this purpose, the types of artifacts related to the process of document protection and/or binding are presented on the example of Department of Publishing Art at National Museum in Wrocław collection. This made it possible to outline the benefits that may come from the deliberate and conscious collecting of this type of artifacts as museum objects. The result of these activities is to underline the importance of the museum collection in research on the covers and bookbinding, and to emphasize the fact that only this type of collection is focused on preserving the document in terms of its completeness and aesthetic values (library and archival collections give priority to informative and provenance values).