Students on the V&A / RCA History of Design Postgraduate Programme can enrich their learning experience by contributing to live museum projects. In this series, we share some of the exciting discoveries made by students who helped to rehome the National Art Library’s large collection of children’s books when it moved to V&A Storehouse earlier this year.
When we think of a book, we tend to picture its cover design, the printed pages inside, or the story it tells. But for conservators and researchers, fascinating stories are also hidden in places that were never meant to be seen – such as the spine.
A case in point is a volume in the collection of the National Art Library. It is missing its original cover, leaving only the exposed text block with no hard spine or boards. The stitching down the spine might resemble a typical 19th-century binding. But look closer and the book’s inner construction is revealed. The folded gatherings (sections) are neatly collated and sewn together by hand with thread, making the structure visible in a way normally hidden beneath a case binding.
When bindings are damaged, incomplete, or dismantled for conservation, new evidence can become apparent. The spine may contain fragments of discarded paper, repurposed by binders to line and reinforce the structure – material that transforms what appears to be a loss into an unexpected window into bookmaking practice.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, bookbinders frequently used wastepaper as a practical resource. Offcuts from printing houses, outdated proofs or fragments of older books were pasted inside bindings to reinforce the spine. Since paper was an expensive commodity, binders wasted little, finding secondary uses for materials otherwise headed for the rubbish heap.
For historians today, these scraps are invaluable. They preserve evidence of the broader print and publishing world by offering glimpses of texts, advertisements, account sheets or even handwriting that would have been otherwise lost. In some cases, they reveal information about the binder’s workshop or the book trade itself – traces of commercial life embedded inside the very structure of a book.
The NAL’s copy of The House in Town offers valuable evidence of these practices of recycling and reuse. Peeking through its exposed spine are fragments of printed paper, once hidden beneath the bookcloth. Though never intended for readers’ eyes, these pieces of ‘waste’ are now part of the book’s material history. They remind us that books were not only objects of reading but also products of economy, craft and resourcefulness.
What was once considered disposable now enriches our understanding of 19th-century publishing. Scrap paper in book bindings connects literary works to the wider networks of printing, trade and material reuse in Victorian England. For conservators and bibliographers, these hidden fragments are like time capsules, evidence of how books were made, repaired and circulated.
To see what else V&A/RCA History of Design students have been up to, read our other blog posts or check our pages on the RCA website. You can even find out how to apply for 2026/2027 admission to MA V&A/RCA History of Design here.
