27/06/2014

“L’activité des tanneries et des mégisseries du Vivarais vers la fin du XVIIIe siècle” par Bertrand (1938)

Bertrand, A.-J.-C.; “L’activité des tanneries et des mégisseries du Vivarais vers la fin du XVIIIe siècle”, Revue de géographie alpine 26(2) (1938) 401–416.
Doi:10.3406/rga.1938.4022 (Persée)

20/06/2014

"Identification of collagen-based materials in cultural heritage" by Kirby et al (2013)

Kirby, D. P.; Buckley, M.; Promise, E.; Trauger, S. A.; Holdcraft, T. R.; “Identification of collagen-based materials in cultural heritage”, Analyst 138(17) (2013) 4849–4858.
DOI:10.1039/C3AN00925D (restricted access)

Abstract:
All stakeholders in cultural heritage share an interest in fabrication methods and material technology. Until now methods for analysis of organic materials, particularly proteins, have not been widely available to researchers at cultural institutions. This paper will describe an analytical method for the identification of collagen-based materials from soft tissue sources and show examples of its application to diverse museum objects. The method, peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF), uses enzymatic digestion of extracted proteins to produce a mixture of peptides. The mass spectrum of the mixture contains characteristic marker ions—a peptide mass fingerprint—which are compared to species-specific markers from references as the basis of identification. Preliminary results indicate that analysis of materials from aged samples, several different tissue types, and tanned or untanned materials yields comparable PMF results. Significantly, PMF is simple, rapid, sensitive and specific, has been implemented in a museum laboratory, and is being practiced successfully by non-specialists.

14/06/2014

"The secrets in skin: species identification of treated skins through proteomic analysis" by van Doorn & Fiddyment (2014)

Nienke van Doorn & Sarah Fiddyment, "The secrets in skin: species identification of treated skins through proteomic analysis", 117th SLTC Conference 2014, 26th April 2014, University of Northampton, Northampton.
URL (Video and PowerPoint presentation)

13/06/2014

“Anthropodermic bibliopegy..." by Nambudiri & Nambudiri (2014)

Nambudiri, N.S., Nambudiri, V.E.; “Anthropodermic bibliopegy: Lessons from a different sort of dermatologic text”, JAMA Dermatology 150(1) (2014) 41–41. 
Doi:10.1001/jamadermatol.2013.7473

From the text:
The practice of anthropodermic bibliopegy—the use of human skin for the binding of printed books and manuscripts—dates back several centuries, with examples reported from nations in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Individuals whose skin has been used for anthropodermic bindings range from authors and scientists who willingly donated their bodies upon their deaths to criminals and the infirm whose corpses were used for binding of texts on law and medicine.


Also about anthropodermic bibliopegy a very recent post at the Houghton Library Blog:
"The science of anthropodermic binding"
URL