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Last week my mother passed on to me a real, genuine family heirloom. It is a hardcover book titled "White House Cook Book" published in 1888 and credited to Francis Folsom Cleveland, "the bride of the white house". The book quite literally travelled across the country in a covered wagon with my great-great-grandmother, and may have actually been given to her by her own mother. So the book's got some history to it.
It is also, as one might expect, *extremely* brittle. The pages are all still holding together at the binding, but the cover seems ready to break loose at the slightest provocation. The pages themselves, while certainly yellowed, are perfectly legible but feel like one good gust of wind might shatter them.
So my question is this: how do I best go about preserving this heirloom? I don't expect it can be restored, but there must be sensible steps I can take to prevent the whole thing from just crumbling away.
Advice?
It is also, as one might expect, *extremely* brittle. The pages are all still holding together at the binding, but the cover seems ready to break loose at the slightest provocation. The pages themselves, while certainly yellowed, are perfectly legible but feel like one good gust of wind might shatter them.
So my question is this: how do I best go about preserving this heirloom? I don't expect it can be restored, but there must be sensible steps I can take to prevent the whole thing from just crumbling away.
Advice?
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