an early book

this is one of the first books i ever made. it's definitely not _the_ first, tho. i can tell from the materials: heavy paper, which i still have at home, rather than the buckram i would've used at the lab.
it is the first technique i learned, though, japanese stab binding.
we got a book in what i called "the lab", the book repair area in the Preservation department at the main library of Rutgers, where i worked while i was in grad school. it was bound this way, and i was fascinated. my boss told me a little about it, and then i photocopied the binding and practiced with some spare material until i understood how it worked.
if you look very very closely, you can maybe pretend to see my wife (then girlfriend)'s intials tooled into the cover. it didn't photograph well.
i'm thinking of doing a video demonstration of this technique later, but that's later. for now, enjoy the picture. i'll upload more later.
--cm