Preservation @ ZSR blog

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.

On July 11-12, Phoebe Kao, a librarian from an international school in Tianjin, China visited ZSR Preservation for two days of book repair training. Phoebe came to ZSR via the NCPC web site and over several months, we were able to arrive at a good time for her to come. During her two days in Preservation, Phoebe made two books (western case bound book and an eastern stab binding), replaced spines, tipped in pages, repaired paper tears with heat-set tissue and also tackled a range of other odd repairs. Phoebe and I also spent a good amount of time discussing decision-making before beginning repairs. As a repair is only as good as the materials and technique used, this was time well spent. Another area we discussed was materials and supplies and what suppliers were best for various items. We spent a good deal of time on repairing paperbacks, since much of Phoebe’s collection is paper bound.

Phoebe actually went through the steps of cutting large sheets of paper, folding them into 3 sheet signatures, sewing them with linen thread, attaching end sheets, making a case, and attaching the text block to the case to create a book. Making a book from “scratch” is always a special experience and I felt Phoebe was very happy with her book. This was a great experience from my viewpoint because I felt I was giving information and knowledge directly to a person who needed it badly. Service is a key point in the profession of librarianship and I felt this was a two day service venture that was profitable for both Phoebe and myself.

On June 6, 2008, I taught an Intermediate Book Repair workshop for the North Carolina Preservation Consortium at Wake Forest. There were nine people from various schools across the state: ECU, WFU Professional Center Library, Catawba College and Appalachian State, Warren Wilson College and Campbell University. During the day, I covered a variety of repairs: spine replacement, tipping in pages, end sheet replacement, 4-flap enclosures, paper tears and tightening hinges. The great thing about these workshops is the opportunity to learn from each other and share our collective knowledge. There’s more than one way of doing many of these repairs, so I enjoyed getting ideas from the participants. The NCPC workshops have a basic, intermediate and advanced workshop structure. The basic workshops are the most popular and cover the most ground. The intermediate workshop adds more complicated repairs to the mix. We’ve only offered the advanced workshop one time. This is a great way to share your knowledge and experience and make contact with others doing similar work across North Carolina. I always have a good feeling after doing these workshops.

On April 10th about 2:30 pm, Heather Gillette was told by a student that water was leaking on some books on Wilson 6. She called Kristen Morgan, who notified the Disaster Team. Fortunately, only about 25 books were affected. A gasket failed between two metal parts which saturated the ceiling tile as water leaked. as Heather approached the leak, a soaked ceiling tile fell on the floor and shattered. A number of library staff responded to help. The shelves were covered with plastic sheets and the pieces of tile were cleaned up. Facilities Management responded quickly to repair the damaged part. A close call!

NCPC Basic Book Repair Workshop, ECU Jan 24-25, 2008

Laupus Medical Sciences Library

For two days, my colleague, Rachel Hoff and I, discussed and taught preservation concepts and treatments. It was two day-long Basic Book Repair Workshops sponsored by NCPC. Rachel and I have been teaching these workshops for several years both together and individually as our schedule permits. To prepare for this task, in 2004, we both received a 2-day training course at the Etherington Conservation Center in Greensboro.

We discussed the library environment-cleaning, mold, dust, pest management, etc. and also covered the key preservation issues of “Do No Harm”, reversibility, and appropriate adhesives. Because this was a basic workshop, we also covered tools and assembling a tool kit, reference books (we gave them a bibliography) and web sites for preservation, and suppliers (they received a list). Each participant also received a glossary of preservation terminology, a diagram of the parts of a book, and step by step instructions on spine replacement, tearing Japanese paper and the use of heat-set tissue. We also briefly discussed disaster recovery and treatment solutions.

After the hour long discussion, the rubber hit the road. Rachel demonstrated various methods of tipping in loose pages and hinge tightening methods. Following this, I demonstrated the spine replacement my own students do. We completed making a new spine piece for each book and following a nice lunch overlooking the Medical Sciences campus, we glued the new spine piece into each book. We also demonstrated using heat-set tissue to repair paper tears and tearing Japanese paper for hinge reinforcement.

These workshops are gratifying because many individuals are not able to get this training and are very appreciative of our workshops.

In Preservation, I cut heavy archival board with a large cast iron machine called a board shear. Mine was made by the Jacques Manufacturing Co, in Worchester, Massachusetts probably in the 1930’s and was originally used for box making. Book binders everywhere have bought these old machines to use in their work since nothing else can acccurately cut heavy board.

My board shear had the blade and plate sharpened this summer by a knife company in Virginia. This involved shipping 2 four foot long metal blades via UPS on a wood support.

As time has gone by this year, the blade began to rub against the plate on the deck. I contacted the company I purchased the board shear from -American Graphic Arts, Inc. for help. They advised me how to make an adjustment, which involved loosening a large lock nut, which allowed a second bolt to be loosened or tightened. This done, my student assistant, Trey Godwin, and I played with the adjustment until we had the right amount of rub of the blade, and the best and cleanest cut. When the adjustment was made, we tightened the lock nut, and now all our cuts are ’sweeet’.

Over the past 2 years, I’ve worked with the Professional Center Library to set up a small preservation area. This week, Angie Hobbs from PCL came over to ZSR and we worked for a few hours on some of her more pesky repairs. We consolidated a text block and applied end sheets; replaced a spine; re-attached a loose text block to its cover; repaired rotted leather hinges using Japanese paper; and covered an assortment of other small repair issues. This not only helps PCL with their preservation training, but it also helps me to review these techniques under a watchful eye. It was a good session which will hopefully continue to produce good will.

On Thursday, Nov. 29th, eight history students in Dr. Jeff Lerner’s Roman History class stood in the library entrance and made their presentations. After working through the semester on the research, meeting with me on their exhibit design, and constructing their exhibit- each student was ready to present their work to the entire class of 28. All the exhibits were generally about Ancient Rome. Some students worked mostly on their own and needed little help or assistance. Most students, however, worked in Preservation and did most of the construction there using the library as a resource for books and other resources. It is a gratifying and worthwhile experience to work with these students and see their final products materialize. Images of the exhibits can be seen at the ZSR Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zsrlibrary/sets/72157600032772399/

On Wenesday, November 14, I taught a book repair workshop for the NCSLMA (North Carolina School Library Media Association. This workshop was sponsored by the North Carolina Preservation Consortium (NCPC). The workshop was a pre-conference offering for the NCSLMA Annual conference held at the Benton Convention Center in Winston-Salem. I had 22 media coordinators to teach repair techniques. The day flew by as I tried in vain to keep up with these teachers-no matter what I did, they always went ahead of where I was in the teaching process. Teachers are often on their own and have to solve problems with no outside help-so during this workshop, they just did what they thought most natural—-forge ahead! Meanwhile, I was trotting behind calling-”hey Wild Bill, wait for me!” We covered spine replacement, torn pages, tipping in pages, tightening hinges and many other things. It was a good day spent helping these media coordinators who don’t really have any resources for book repair in their home schools.