Ethics and book repair - What’s the big deal? Recordings from the 2025 ILAB Symposium

Session 2 of the 2025 ILAB Symposium discussed ethical principles that guide book conservation, which often intersect, sometimes contentiously, with commercial interests and personal values.
Have you ever felt that you sanctioned an unethical book repair? Or judged a colleague for having done so? What does it actually mean to repair a book in an unethical way?

The session was led by internationally renowned conservator Natasha Herman, followed by a panel discussion considering how aesthetic choices, historical integrity, and cultural perception shape decisions about book repair.
Using real-world examples, the session was intended to give room for a nuanced dialogue beyond a simple good/bad binary, highlighting the complex ethics surrounding the care of book heritage.

Speaker: Natasha Herman of STILT® Book Cradles and Redbone Bindery, Groningen (The Netherlands)
Moderator: Mats Petersson, ILAB Vice President; Centralantikvariatet, Stockholm (Sweden)
Panelists:
Nicolas Malais, ILAB General Secretary; Librairie Nicolas Malais, Paris (France)
Dr Anna Welch, Principal Collection Curator, History of the Book, State Library Victoria, Melbourne (Australia)