Preservation @ ZSR blog

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. 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. We 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 reocrd the titels being recoverd. This was a useful exercise both for new staff and for review.

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.