Scribe Bookbinding: proprietor, John Stinson OAM

John Stinson's interest in books and their binding spans more than forty years. He studied bookbinding at the Franciscan Press 1958-1962 and more recently with Raffaele de Dominicis at Abacus bindery and Antoni Rigol i Muxart at the Istituto per l'Arte e il Restauro, both in Florence, RMIT University, Melbourne, and the Centro del Bel Libro in Ascona, Switzerland. From 1973 to 2002 he was an academic: his specialty is in medieval musical manuscripts. He researches regularly in Italian libraries, especially the Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence and the Vatican Library in Rome. He is a member of the Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Materials. Scribe Bookbinding is committed to the Code of Ethics and Code of Practice of the AICCM.

He is responsible for the Medieval Music Database, on which a complete transcription of a 14th-century set of Dominican corali in the Biblioteca Augusta di Perugia is indexed by text, melody and rubric, as well as three medieval musical manuscripts held in Australian libraries. One of these, the Poissy Antiphonal, is discussed in detail in The La Trobe Journal. His most recent publication is 'I manoscritti musicali del Trecento' in Il Libro di Musica ed. Carlo Fiore, Palermo: L'Epos, 2004 and is contributing to the Harvard University project on the church of San Lorenzo in Florence. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in January 2010 for services to medieval music.

In 2004 he acquired the bookbinding business of John Kelley, Master Bookbinder, who serviced the La Trobe University community for more than 30 years. John Kelley's association with Scribe Bookbinding continues as consultant and master binder.

Scribe Bookbinding offers thesis binding from thirty years of academic experience as well as custom binding and restoration on historical models.