Patricia Khoder, Office of Communications, communications@aub.edu.lb
Restoring a book or document while preserving its original character is a delicate art. It requires not only skilled hands and meticulous attention to detail, but also a deep reverence for the past. At the American University of Beirut University Libraries' Conservation and Preservation Section, history is revived one page at a time as experts work patiently to breathe new life into centuries-old manuscripts, books, and documents.
Every day, in a spacious room repurposed as a restoration workshop within the Archives & Special Collections Department of the University Libraries, a dedicated team of four conservators works meticulously to restore historical material. With steady hands, they revive each item while preserving its original form.
“Document restoration at the AUB Library began around 2010 as part of a broader initiative to safeguard the university's historical and cultural heritage," explains Jad Zahran, conservation and preservation librarian. “Over the years, the program has grown significantly with the support of three highly trained conservation staff and a Librarian, along with improved facilities."
The work is entirely artisanal: torn pages are carefully glued and stitched to reconstruct a book's spine; damaged covers are mended using natural leather; and fragile pages are painstakingly restored to wholeness. Every material used in the process is natural—from distilled water and alcohol for gentle cleaning, to fine Japanese paper used to replace missing fragments with precision and care.
“Everything is done in-house and custom-made in our workshop," says Elias Abboud, one of the conservation assistants who learned the craft on the job. “We can restore almost anything—except paintings and heavily damaged photographs. We also design and build custom boxes to protect valuable documents."
Conservation Assistant Shaza Jammal, who specialized in analyzing manuscript marginalia during her university studies, gently examines an 18th century Arabic manuscript damaged by rodents. She points to the handwritten notes in the margins and explains, “In the past, paper was very expensive, so scholars, scribes, or later readers would write explanations or interpretations of the main text thus offering insight into how texts were read, interpreted, and transmitted across generations... These notes sometimes tell a story parallel to the book itself—one that's unique to the reader of that time."
“Everything we do is reversible," Jammal notes. “The goal is not to make the document more beautiful than it originally was, but to preserve it as faithfully as possible to its original state. Some materials age better than others—carbon ink, for instance, is more stable over time, while iron ink tends to turn reddish and can corrode the paper."
“Here we conduct simple and advanced conservation work, from surface cleaning, paper mending, and spine rebacking to casebinding and sewing," says Conservation Assistant May Talhouk.
“Up until around the Industrial Revolution, paper was primarily made from cotton and linen rags, as well as shrubs, which were far more durable than the mostly untreated wood pulp-based paper of the 19th and 20th centuries. Although it has been cheaper and faster to produce, this kind of paper tends to age rapidly with distinctive yellowness and fragility, making its restoration particularly time- and resource-intensive," adds Zahran.
The AUB Archives & Special Collections houses a remarkably diverse array of materials, including ancient manuscripts, rare and early printed books, diplomas, artistic and political posters, historical photographs, student theses, university records, pamphlets, letters, business cards, postcards, maps, and even early newspapers and newsletters.
These items document the intellectual, social, and political history of the region, with a particular emphasis on Lebanon and the broader Arab world.
“To protect this old material from deterioration, it's crucial to store them in a clean, secure, and climate-controlled environment, with a stable temperature and relative humidity," Zahran adds.
Since the establishment of the conservation section, the specialized team has restored several hundred items, ranging from rare books and manuscripts to diplomas, records, and personal letters. “Books and periodicals published in the 20th century make up the majority of restored items due to their fragility and relatively frequent usage, followed by archival documents and records," concludes Zahran.