Ethics and Economical Aspects of Book Cultural Heritage Preservation - The Conservation. Theoretical Point Of View

For some years conservators and art historians have written about conservation theories insisting on the possibility to widen Cesare Brandi’s term „work of art“ and apply it to books as well (Brandi, 2006; Schadler-Saub, 2011). A book is a work of art - is their conclu­sion. But is really any book a work of art and what benefit do we gain out of such defini­tion respectively fact? As an important step towards our question on ethics and economical aspects of book cultural heritage preservation we shall understand the possibly different artistic value in the various groups of books, which are defined in the contribution; we shall understand what in terms of conservation follows from this difference in artistic value con­cerning ethics and economy. The latter is clearly and immediately connected with the con­servation measures. The contribution is based on the over 30 years’ experience of the author; she is a university trained conservator-restorer and has worked in public collections, as freelancer for churches, museums, libraries and archives and as a university teacher in the field of book and paper conservation-restoration. Therefore she should have an overview over a wide range of situations books are in - both ethically and economically. Furthermore the author is familiar with the different situations all over Europe and dares to draw a first conclusion on the topic.