The Bikeriders and the Bookbinders: Preserving Danny Lyon's Classic Photobook

Danny Lyon’s book The Bikeriders is a seminal document of the emergence of the outlaw biker as a countercultural force in the 1960s. First published in 1968, a year before the release of the film Easy Rider, the book chronicles four years in the lives of the Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club from 1963 to 1967 through photographs and interviews. The book has inspired a 2024 film of the same name directed by Austinite Jeff Nichols and starring Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Jodie Comer, Michael Shannon and Mike Faist.
The preservationists at the University of Texas Libraries have worked hard to ensure that UT’s first-edition copy of The Bikeriders remains in circulation after a tough life of its own. In this video, Brittany Centeno, Librarian for Preservation, describes the repairs to the book’s slashed and torn pages and discusses why preservation specialists repair damaged books.