02-08-2018, 06:30 PM
Helmut, I've been thinking about what you said...
The VMS is small, meant to be portable (yes, an assumption, but it's about the size of a calendar book that was made to be carried and it is somewhat "encyclopedic" in content like a reference book) and small books are, in a sense, like modern paperbacks, portable and soft-covered.
My subjective feeling is that you are right... it doesn't seem likely that the original user (or intended user) would have chosen a wood binding.
But what about a subsequent owner, someone who had it rebound to keep it in a library, someone who couldn't read the strange writing and thus would have no reason to carry it around? someone who was a collector of curiosities. Might someone like Rudolph have it bound in wood simply to match the other books?
The VMS is small, meant to be portable (yes, an assumption, but it's about the size of a calendar book that was made to be carried and it is somewhat "encyclopedic" in content like a reference book) and small books are, in a sense, like modern paperbacks, portable and soft-covered.
My subjective feeling is that you are right... it doesn't seem likely that the original user (or intended user) would have chosen a wood binding.
But what about a subsequent owner, someone who had it rebound to keep it in a library, someone who couldn't read the strange writing and thus would have no reason to carry it around? someone who was a collector of curiosities. Might someone like Rudolph have it bound in wood simply to match the other books?