Preservation @ ZSR blog

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.