2025 Poster Session

Book cradles are an important tool for handling and interacting with books. Whether it be for display, reading, imaging, or restoration, a book cradle is at the center of the book’s safety and stability for various interactions. There have been many iterations of the book cradle, from bespoke to manufactured, however there is a need for book cradles that meet goals of efficiency and sustainability.

Book cradles are crafted and modified to fit the book they are currently serving, whether that is by stacking multiple foam wedges, a custom acrylic stand, or rearranging pillows in order to support the proper places on a book. There is a need in reading rooms to balance efficiency, cost, and space. For cultural heritage institutions aiming for sustainability, single-use cradles may not be helping to reach that goal. For institutions who have limited space, keeping various sized wedges, where some of them may spend more time in storage rather than being used, can be challenging. Additionally, there may be situations where multiple patrons require a particular size of book support, but there may be a limited number of them available. Born from interviews with archivists, librarians, curators, conservators, and related professionals, the design of an updated book cradle is proposed. Furthermore this project displays the fruit of collaboration among designers, conservators, archivists, and other museum professionals to create purpose-built solutions for cultural heritage.   

 The designer and author, Louis Drum, gathered common “pain points” from interviews, determining the challenges that many professionals faced with book cradles, some of which included inefficiency of swapping wedges, or not finding quite the right angle of support. Within these interviews spine support was also emphasized, and how some current options may not be  appropriately achieving it. 

With these challenges in mind, a concept was modeled for an adjustable cradle using Fusion360 that can be moved and changed without needing to remove the book from the cradle, and can eliminate the need for custom single-use cradles. 

Currently the materials proposed to make this cradle are the following: the internal structure of the cradle will be made of a sturdy acrylic; the surfaces will be covered with a thin layer of foam; and all of it will be wrapped in a conservation-grade fabric. 

For the functionality, the opening angle of the cradle is currently able to be adjusted from 60° to 120°, and the plates can extend to fully support books with a wingspan up to 27 inches. The middle of the cradle leaves room for different-sized spine inserts, or allows for the use of book pillows. The cradle can be folded in half and stored in a custom carrying case that can also store spine inserts, book snakes, and any other accessory necessary for handling books. 

There are currently more improvements to the model being worked on such as vertical angle adjustment and a wider angle allowance. With this in mind, the proposed cradle intends to enhance the experience interacting with a book while also being efficient, sustainable, and cost-effective.