Bridget Mitchell is a Book Conservator, Icon accredited in 2000. She has run her own book conservation studio since 2003, trading under the name Arca Preservation which undertakes book conservation treatments, exhibition and display preparation, book cradle design and construction and specialises in the design and construction of preservation solutions for books, manuscripts and complex manuscript objects. She is also the designer of the “Book Shelter”, a project she developed in collaboration with the National Trust to facilitate the quick, easy and protected display of books where a display case is neither desirable nor available. Her interests lie in enabling objects to impact their viewers to their maximum potential by facilitating the objects’ use, display and storage appropriately. She also has a keen interest in the business of running a craft-based business and helping professional craftspeople and conservators run businesses that succeed.
Bridget trained in Bookbinding and Conservation with Maureen Duke at Guildford Technical College, graduating with Distinction in 1991. She went on to gain the position of Conservation Assistant at the Bodleian Library where she worked in the library Bindery and the Conservation Department before receiving a Conservation Trust Scholarship to study the Conservation of Rare Books and Early Manuscripts with Christopher Clarkson and David Dorning at West Dean College. Returning to the Bodleian for a year to work on a project to make book shoes for Duke Humfrey’s Library in 1995, she took a position as Book Conservator at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She became Senior Conservator in 1998 with responsibility for some of the museum’s major book projects and galleries refurbishments.