By Denny Sheppard
Bookbinding is an obscure class on BYU campus.
'The class has been at BYU for 10 years, yet no one knows about it ... unless they find out from roommates and people they know who have taken it,' Mark Pollei said.
Pollei, chair of the Harold B. Lee Library Rarebook and Conservation Lab, is one of two class instructors.
According to Pollei, the class is more than just bookbinding. He teaches students the history and trade of bookbinding through hands-on experience.
'The projects are a way of studying a subject in its context,' Pollei said. 'With bookbinding you participate in the history.'
Students use modern paper, tools and equipment to bind books, but they follow the same process and methods used by bookbinders historically.
'The only difference is that instead of being in a cave, you''re in a lighted, air-conditioned room,' Pollei said.
The projects range from learning a binding performed by the early Egyptian-Christians to a 15th century technique used in Italy to modern-day bindings similar to those used on textbooks.
Although the same project is assigned to each student, when turned in, every project is unique.
'There is no generic project,' Pollei said. 'The students realize their distinct differences, and their different personalities show up in each project.'
Passers-by notice lights on at all hours of the day and night at the bookbinding lab as students labor on projects.
'You spend four hours in class and double or triple that out of class,' said David Dibble, a senior from Layton majoring in illustration.
'The class is self-motivating,' Dibble said. 'I didn''t have to spend so much time. I wanted to. Perhaps to the detriment of my other classes.'
Dibble spent 40 to 50 hours completing his final project, which consisted of two journals connected by interlocking and multilayered boxes.
He said he hoped that he and his future wife could use these journals to write to one another.
Enrolling in bookbinding can be more challenging than the projects themselves. Class is once a week and has a limited enrollment of 15 students per section, with two to three sections offered per semester.
Once students claim a spot, they continue to do so for several semesters.
'Many students retake this class,' Pollei said. 'I had one student that took it five times.'
Passion for this subject is resonated by Pollei himself. For him, bookbinding is more than just putting a cover on a layer of pages.
'We''ve (society) removed ourselves from something that was once handmade,' Pollei said. 'This class gives you the opportunity to create the handmade with an extension of who you are.'
By the end of the course, students grasp Pollei''s vision of creating something that reflects themselves.
'Bookbinding is the opposite of what every other class is,' Dibble said. 'It''s something deeper than a grade or a test; it''s about putting yourself into it.'