The BBinding project – innovative training tools and materials for bookbinders – Dr. Rosen Petkov, Chairman of Student Computer Art Society (Bulgaria)
In parallel to the declining large scale bookbinding workshops some new positive tendencies occurred. Last few decades there is an increasing demand for artistic bindings, increasing awareness of the old libraries and archives about their collections and the expansion of the Internet trade with old books. These tendencies are encouraging the appearance of new generation of bookbinders. In relation to the bookbinding, the conservation and restoration area grows. But most of the existing training materials are covering part of the problems and are rather old fashioned. There is a lack of training tools, and especially tools focusing on skills like entrepreneurship, intercultural learning and green skills in relation to the work of the “modern” bookbinders.
Thus, the general aim of the BBinding project (www.bbinding.org), supported by the Leonardo da Vinci programme of EU, is to provide modern training materials and tools for vocational training for bookbinding and paper preservation.
The users that will benefit the developed training materials are:
- bookbinders (self-employed) and workers in small bookbinding workshops/ateliers;
- unemployed workers from former large bookbinding workshops or printing factories;
- unemployed individuals willing to develop their entrepreneurship and professional skills in the area;
- young artists who are willing to develop artistic bookbindings;
- vocational trainers in the binding ateliers or team leaders in the restoration sections in libraries/archives.
Main products and results include:
- a set of 9 online training modules – in a LMS suitable for e-learning;
- 3D CAD bookbinding design tool to facilitate the work of the bookbinders when designing the bindings;
- a module-based practical manual printed in Bulgarian and English and available as pdf also in Italian, German and Dutch;