Abstract
This paper will review the one-year project to conserve the Turkish collection at the Chester Beatty Library. The materials and techniques of conservation were adapted from historic examples of Islamic bookbindings, notably examples of Andalucian Islamic bindings. These were incorporated to facilitate the book conservators' ideals of reversibility and accessibility. The conservation methodologies used will be discussed, before an analysis of the binding structures is given. Many of the bindings within the collection have been produced in a significantly different way to the case-binding structure which is usually associated with Islamic bindings, thus providing an example of differing book traditions within the Islamic world. This structure may be specific to Turkey and the cultural and historical reasons for this will be considered. The one-year project to conserve the Turkish manuscript collection at the Chester Beatty Library will hopefully provide significant insight to the methods of book construction used in Turkey.