Preservation @ ZSR blog

Recently, I was asked to repair and recover a small box used for transporting communion materials. I assume this would be used for taking communion to an ill person who couldn’t travel. I removed all the hardware, and recovered the box with book cloth. I then, replaced the handles and latch. It seems to be in reasonably good shape to continue on it’s mission of good will.

I ask you: is this preservation?

I guess so.

I recently received a map which was sewn into a 1537 book entitled: Novus Orbis Regio. This map was torn into two pieces after a small accident in Rare Books. Looking at this map, I decided to remove it from the book to perform the repair. First, I flattened the map, smoothing out dog ears and small folds. I then tore small pieces of heat-set tissue to use as tabs to hold the pieces of the map together.
The heat-set tissue comes on a roll a little more than 12 ” in width. It took two lengths of the tissue to cover the entire back of the map. The heat-set tissue is adhered to the back of the map with an iron. The iron is moved slowly over the heat-set tissue, which is covered by a silicone release paper to avoid sticking to the iron. After the entire back of the map was covered, the edges were trimmed of excess tissue and the map was done. I then re-attached the map to the book.

A group of nine books appeared in my office this week. Across the top of these books is a sloppy puddle of dried Cookies and Cream ice cream. You can see the outline of an upturned container in the dried ice cream. So this seems to be either an intentional thing or negligence on the part of one of our library patrons. Two of these titles will like be discarded as unsalvagable. The remainder can be cleaned and returned to circulation.

On Thursday, October 30th, several members of the ZSR Disaster Committee gathered in Preservation for training. This is important since many times a disaster happens when key personnel are absent or unavailable. In that kind of situation, the more eyes and hands that know what to do, the better. We began by walking through the library to show everyone where we’ve stored caches of disaster supplies, such as boxes, tape, plastic sheeting, butcher paper, etc. Following this, we reviewed packing wet materials. The library materials should ideally be packed ’spine down’. This protects the books from further damage after getting wet and being stored improperly. Larger books can also be stored with the largest book on the bottom and stacked in a pyramid fashion. After wetting down a group of ‘discards’, we practiced packing the books properly, wrapped in butcher paper, spine down. We also demonstrated scanning the barcodes of each item to record the titles being recovered. This was a useful exercise both for new staff and for review.

On Friday, September 26, I was summoned by the Circulation Staff to look at a returned book. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire had a cockroach smashed within it’s pages. I immediately photographed it (see a photo at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zsrlibrary/2890143658/), and took the steps necessary to have the book withdrawn. I was relieved when I went to the trash area and saw them removing the trash-this meant the bug and the book were gone immediately.

This incident shows how easily a pest can enter a library. If this bug had not been dead, he no doubt would’ve joined others hidden in our building. Good riddance!

Various leathers are examined by the class: sheep, calf and goat

Seven preservationists from across North Carolina participated in a Leather Repair Workshop was held in the ZSR Preservation Lab, July 24-25, 2008. The workshop presenter was Jim Hinz, a Book Conservator at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia. The workshop was sponsored by the North Carolina Preservation Consortium, and was attended by preservationists from NC State, UNC-CH Medical Sciences Library, ECU, UNC-G and Duke. During the workshop, we learned to re-attach loose boards, dye, consolidate and pare leather.  We also learned to use a leather paring machine and re-back a damaged leather spine.  It was a lot of information for two days, but was super useful for my vast array of damaged leather books in Preservation!

I began today by finishing my re-shelving project. Along the way, I found a 1942 edition of Huckleberry Finn with Mark Twain’s signature in the front, as well as a 1926 Winnie-the-Pooh edition signed by A. A. Milne and the original illustrator, E. H. Shepard. What fun!

Following this effort, I printed drafts of two new brochures the library distributes to students and faculty. These drafts will make their way under the eyes of each Team Leader as we try to iron out all the wrinkles. Next week, I have a 2-day leather book repair workshop and so I also did a little cleaning and straightening of my work space. I also made an unsuccessful effort to convert video footage files I took of myself performing various book repair techniques. I’ll probably work on this project again next week when I can get some help.

I met with my Team Leader to go over my work and discuss future projects. As part of this discussion, I scanned an image from our collection and submitted it as a potential cover image to RBM Journal. I also asked my student assistant to pick up a gallon of ethyl alcohol from the Chemistry Department. I transferred this alcohol to plastic containers that I store in a fire-proof cabinet. I use this alcohol for making a leather consolidant called Klucel-G. At the end of the day, I finished up the week with a few repairs before I made my way into the weekend.

After riding my bicycle to work, I was sitting in my office (in shorts and flip-flops). I’d planned on changing into my work clothes after I cooled off. Then, in walks my supervisor and the library director with a visitor-yikes! My attire wasn’t an issue at all (except to me) and the four of us walked off into the library to look at a newly named reading room that I’d helped with. This encounter went swimmingly well and actually was a highlight of my day.

Later, I replaced directional signs outside the library. Our main entrance is under construction this summer, so I had some signs made to get patrons in the building more efficiently. Later, I re-ordered my rare books because I got a book truck of these books that needed repair. I needed to place them in call number order on my shelves and incorporate them into the ones I already had shelved.

In the afternoon, we had a library wide staff meeting where we discussed a newly organized library team and the development of faculty status for librarians.

an example of an old scrapbook

On Wednesday, July 16, Vicki Johnson and I attended a Solinet workshop on caring for scrapbooks. The workshop was presented by Jessica Leming of Solinet Preservation Services. This workshop covered a seldom addressed topic-the deterioration of older scrapbook collections. These scrapbooks take a variety of shapes and forms- ledgers, re-purposed sales catalogs, and bound materials of all kinds. At one time, it was apparently popular to take any bound item and paste your mementos inside as if all the pages were blank.

Jessica covered the general areas of assessment (condition), prevention treatments, housing(what to put a scrapbook in to protect it) and policies.

One of the main issues with preservation of historic scrapbooks is the use of “ground wood pulp paper”-a paper made from unbuffered wood pulp that is very acidic. This kind of paper was used heavily form around 1850-1900 to meet growing demands. Now, this paper is becoming brittle and causing problems. Other issues seen in historic scrapbooks is fading of photographs, staining from glues, binding failure de-lamination, brittle/yellowed cellophane tape, and faded inks.

Solutions for scrapbook preservation inclusde:

• Interleaving of acid-free cotton rag paper-the step insulates each page from the ther and can prevent staining and bleed through.
• Enclosures- drop spine or archival boxes can house an entire scrapbook to prevent further deterioration and light damage.

• Treatment

1. stabilization can be attained by mending or storage
2. Reformatting- making a preservation facsimile or a preservation microfilm copy will protect the original item while allowing access to the content.
3. Digitization- another way to allow access to the information of an item while protecting the actual item from handling damage.
4. Disbinding/Preservation- the scrapbook can actually be restored if the money and preservation skills are present

This workshop helped me to be aware of a growing area of preservation needs and the appropriate methods of protecting historic scrapbooks.

The start of a new week brings new stuff to do. Yesterday, I actually began repairing some books that had been sitting for some time. My responsibilities often mean that my primary job-preservation-gets left until the dust settles. I’m currently working on re-designing our library brochures, normally, not a huge job. This year, however, we have a new logo and a 90 page Identity Standards booklet with guidelines on logo use and placement. As a result, I have to look at almost every detail, not just the text. So, it was fun to perform a few repairs yesterday afternoon.

Today, I’ll be working on exhibits-another one of my areas of responsibility. Our library has emptied out a large room that held our Periodicals and converted it into a study area. This room has 10 exhibit cases, most of which were hidden behind large newspaper and magazine cabinets. With these cabinets removed, I’ll need to put ’something’ in these now revealed exhibit cases. I hope to use some exhibits I’ve saved from the past so I’ll be able to do this quickly. And hopefully, this afternoon I’ll repair a few more books!

Life in the library is different every day and that makes this a great job.