Countywide : Museum’s Type Must Be Movable

Tucked in an industrial area next to the Santa Ana Freeway in Buena Park is a museum with an impressive collection that depicts the nation’s history of printing.

“What’s on display doubles what’s on display at the Smithsonian,” said Mark Barbour, director and curator of the International Printing Museum.

The nonprofit museum was established in 1988 as a place to house antique printing machinery collected by Ernest A. Lindner, a Glendale resident who comes from a family of printers. About 95% of the museum’s collection belongs to Lindner, Barbour said.

However, the museum, with 50,000 square feet of space split evenly between exhibit areas and meeting rooms, must relocate. It is in the way of the Santa Ana Freeway widening project.

“Moving’s got its positive and negative sides, but we can make it to our advantage,” he said, adding that the California Department of Transportation is expected to make an offer soon to buy the property.

The museum, with more than 100 pieces of printing equipment, is looking to move to the city’s entertainment corridor on Beach Boulevard.

“If we can get onto Beach Boulevard, it will be a more positive location for us,” said Barbour, noting that it will be two years before the museum will move.

The museum has yet to find a new Beach Boulevard spot, but, Barbour said, relocating to the tourist strip would boost visibility and visitors.

“We’re one of the few cultural attractions in Buena Park,” he said.

Inside the museum are presses dating from the 18th Century to the early 20th Century, Linotype machines, along with an exhibit of Benjamin Franklin’s colonial workshop and a copy of the Gutenberg Bible, printed in 1901. In the gallery are tools of the trade, including 17th- to 19th-Century wood type and ink balls, all used before ink rollers were invented, and even brass spittoons.

Most pieces of the printing equipment weigh 1,000 to 2,000 pounds, with some as heavy as six tons.

“What it will take to move a collection like this is not an easy process--it’s not light,” Barbour said. “Also, galleries and exhibits will have to be redone.”

While at the museum, visitors are shown how a 1713 English Common Press--the same style of wooden press Franklin used--prints an eight-page book. They also get the chance to see and learn about the first metal press invented by Englishman Lord Stanhope, circa 1810.

“We don’t expect them to come in and look at beautiful cast-iron machinery, we want it to be an active experience,” Barbour said. “The way we interpret the collection makes it extremely fascinating, and it goes beyond printing.”

Karen Velarde, a teacher at Pinecrest School in Van Nuys who brought about 50 children to visit last week, said the museum gives the children an impressive lesson in history. “It brings it alive for them,” she said.

Schoolchildren tour the museum weekly, as well as tourists and senior citizen groups, Barbour said.

He said the museum is not just for printing buffs: “The majority of people who visit here are not printers. We can take anyone who walks in our front door and get them excited about antique printing machinery.”