When we are working with fragile, irreplaceable material, it’s critical that the object is properly supported during image capture. Sometimes, this means I have to jury-rig something suitable and every time one of my configurations works it’s deeply satisfying.
Recently, I was working with some 16th century books that contain fragments of other works, often as binding, and one in particular posed a challenge as it was too big for the acrylic cradles we had on hand. I reached out to Special Collections to see what pieces they had and was supplied with two slightly different large acrylic pieces. I was able to clip them together and add a support underneath in a way that allowed me to rest the large item open on top, fully supported, to capture the wrapper, including the spine.
The book rested there for a little under 10 minutes (the scan took almost 7 minutes) and the result was exactly what I’d hoped.
Since I also captured the front and back cover separately, I wasn’t worried about the angle, as my focus was the spine. The completed scans have been uploaded for use on vault: Psalter? Fragment.