Office Hours is a series focusing on unique artifacts that BYU employees display in their offices.
To Christopher McAfee, books are more than books.
“I tell people I’m a book artist,” he said. “That’s the medium.”
Scattered on his office shelves are handmade books, and for McAfee, preserving them is a duty.
The bookshelves feature bindings inspired by medieval Europe or Danish traditions, as well as textured book covers and prints that showcase his experimental techniques. Other unique items include handmade boxes, bookbinding tools; and even a samurai armor case.
Every object tells a story about his love for preservation, creativity and the art of making ideas tangible.
McAfee, head conservator and collections care manager at the Harold B. Lee Library, also keeps reminders of the broader preservation world he once worked in when employed by the Church History Library.
Vintage cameras are also displayed as artifacts from his efforts in teaching others about photographic preservation and the history of visual media.
In college, McAfee took classes in book art creation which shaped his interests, but they ultimately weren’t what led him to his career in preservation. Instead, it was a flooded apartment.
A leaking water heater destroyed boxes of mission journals, photographs and memory books from his time serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Denmark.
“A lot of them used water-soluble ink, so it just bled all over,” he said. “And I didn’t catch it before the mold started growing.”
This experience altered his course from creating books to a focus on preserving books, ultimately introducing him to conservation.
Today, McAfee oversees preservation efforts for BYU’s library, helping protect books, documents and artifacts from the “agents of deterioration which include physical forces, fire, pests, light, humidity, temperature, water.”
“I think preserving history or information is important,” he said. “For special collections materials, we’re preserving not just the content, but the history of the object.”
Though his role has changed over the years, McAfee’s mission remains the same: preserve stories.
“I feel like I’m playing a role in getting information out there,” McAfee said. "By protecting and repairing books.”
