For those playing along at home you will remember that we were flooded a few weeks ago due to a construction incident. Today we are almost back to normal. Our new floor was laid, waxed and buffed this week. Yesterday and today we got the supplies back in the supply room.
Supply room restocked.
Clockwise from upper left: The brand new shiny floor was quickly utilized by Marco, Todd and Jim from LendLease. They put our shelving back and helped move the large heavy supplies back on the shelves. Thanks guys!
I finished putting away the smaller supplies this morning. The upside to this incident is that we got to get rid of a lot of stuff we didn’t need and freed up some space. We just need to get the floors cleaned and we will be back to normal. Sort of…
The temporary photo doc and dirty room combo.
In the next few days they are tearing down a wall in the photo doc room in order to remove the old elevator shaft. We have had to set up our photo doc station in the dirty room until that room is rebuilt and a new floor put down. It’s a tight squeeze but at least it is temporary. The hoe-ramming of bedrock on the other side of our wall starts on Monday. If you come see us, please be patient, we may not hear the doorbell on the first ring.
Today is Preservation Underground’s fourth anniversary. We want to thank our loyal readers, especially those that take the time to comment on our posts.These exchanges keep us engaged and learning, for that I’m appreciative.
My birthday wish for our blog is that we can continue sharing our work with our colleagues both within and outside the library in an engaging way. I would also like to foster even more conversations. What would you like to see more of in the next year? What inspires you to read and respond to a post? What burning preservation or conservation topics would you like us to write about? I’ll leave you with four images of what is happening in the lab today.
Clockwise from upper left: Grace and Tedd on a construction tour with Ken from LendLease; Jim from LendLease works with After Disaster to monitor the drying of our cork floor; Mary and Aaron pre-cut plastic so all we need to do is unroll it if necessary; on the construction tour we saw what was happening on the other side of our wall (hint: they are draping plastic in preparation of rain tomorrow–keep your fingers crossed for us!).
Our Facebook and Twitter followers will know that we had a construction-related water leak in the lab last week that effectively closed our services except for responding to emergencies or rush requests. We were extremely lucky that no one got hurt and no collections got damaged thanks to the quick action of the lab staff.
The leak occurred in our photo documentation and supply rooms. The construction crew had to cut out the baseboards to get air into the walls. They also pulled up the cork floor in the two rooms to facilitate drying. We have had several industrial dehumidifiers and blowers going since last Wednesday but the cork floor is still wet in places. Hopefully it will be dry enough by next week to get the repairs underway.
Besides the noise, the worst part has been the fact that all of our photo equipment and supplies had to be evacuated to the main lab. It’s a bit maze-like trying to get around the room, and finding supplies is a hunt-and-peck endeavor. Conservation work continues but it has slowed down considerably and will remain so until our space is back to normal. We ask for everyone’s patience while we work through the recovery.
Panorama shot of supplies in main lab (click to enlarge).
The big lesson I learned is that it takes a village to respond and recover from even a small disaster. The construction company has been extremely helpful in coordinating the dry-out. Our colleagues in the Digital Production Center helped with the initial response. Staff from Shipping & Receiving were on hand to help vacuum water. Housekeeping has helped move trash. There are many more to thank for coming to our aid. We were lucky, it could have been much worse. And I now have clean, dry socks in my disaster kit.
Today in conservation Grace is washing a newspaper published in 1815. Erin is at Smith Building for our bi-monthly Conservation At Smith consulting hours. Mary is working on rebinding some 18th Century Government Documents. I am air drying a box full of damp materials that have been in the freezer for a while. We also hosted a lunchtime tour for faculty and we discovered our water was turned off due to the construction.
This month on the 1091 Project we hear from our student assistant, KellyNoel Waldorf, who started in Conservation as part of the enabling project. We were lucky enough to get her to stay on and continue working after that project was finished. She has been a great addition to our team and we love having her in the lab.
Written by KellyNoel Waldorf, Conservation Student Assistant
I dig my headphones from the recesses of my backpack, drop my bag into a locker, and press play on the new Mumford album. I let the music fill up my mind and my hands glide over the familiar tasks of collecting tools, snapping in a fresh scalpel blade, shaping boards and paper into folders, envelopes, binders, and boxes. For the next two hours I can relax.
As a senior at Duke University, a Linguistics and International Studies double major studying Spanish and German and working on a creative writing thesis, it seems that every minute of my day is scheduled. At work I don’t have to think about homework or job searches, meetings or finances. I get to work with my hands and listen to music, audio books, or TV re-runs. By the end of two hours I’ve picked out my favorite songs from the album and I’ve got a nice stack of old books freshly housed in tuxedo boxes. It’s gratifying. Holding the tangible evidence of a finished job gives me a weird sense of accomplishment.
KellyNoel foldering brittle newspapers.
Three years ago I was looking through library positions and stumbled across the conservation posting. At first, I was hired to work on the Enabling Project (moving the Rubenstein Rare Books collection before impending renovations). I spent hours in the stacks sorting through books and discovering some of the hidden gems of the extensive collection. As the geek that I am, I felt cool about being one of the last people to ever work in the rare books rooms or to ride the creepy old elevator hidden among the Rubenstein stacks.
Eventually I moved down to the lab and started working on more hands-on projects. One of my favorites was a binder project housing old newspapers. When I started it was slow and I could only make a couple of binders in my shift. After about 200 hundred of them I was making stacks at a time. I would continue working with newspapers in a boxing project. For months there were endless carts of newspapers, I thought we would never see the end of them. Finally we boxed our last paper and I internally rejoiced. I had gone through several seasons of Buffy on that single project.
As a lover of languages, writing, poetry, and books, I am delighted by some of the pieces that my co-workers show me in the lab. My favorite discovery is Duke’s extensive Walt Whitman collection. My mild obsession with transcendentalist literature was intensified when I got to look at notes that were hand written by Whitman himself.
It’s flu season, but there are more shots than the flu vaccine that you should consider getting if you work in Conservation.
We deal with a lot of rusty staples, various rodent and insect “evidence” and other animal and human unmentionables in our daily routine. I always advise matching the job with the appropriate personal protection equipment (PPE) such as gloves, dust masks or respirators, and clothing that can be washed in hot soapy water.
It is also wise to make sure your tetanus vaccine is up to date. And consider a hepatitis vaccine, one sewer-overflow response in the stacks and you will thank me. Who knew conservation could be so risky?
Doris Duke and her trusted steed, posted by Devil’s Tale in honor of Ms. Duke’s 100th birthday.
Today we pause to wish our sister blog a very happy birthday! Devil’s Tale, the blog of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, turns four years old today.
Over the last four years the bloggers of Devil’s Tale have brought to light not only our collection gems, but the hard work it takes to acquire, describe, arrange and preserve the collections in our care.
Their first post set in motion a series of events including the inception and naming of Preservation Underground. Together, we have created innovative blogging ideas including the What’s In The Lab series and our simultaneous blogging posts (one object, two perspectives, posted on the same day). Our enthusiasm for social media led us to start the Social Media Users Group, a grassroots effort to learn how to best use and leverage our social media endeavors.
Happy birthday friends! We hope there is some cake somewhere in an approved eating-area of the library for you today.
When I first started here we had a variety of skill sets on the staff. To help build our skills, share ideas and create a forum to ask questions, I started “Tuesday Tips at Two,” a weekly meeting with the staff. On Tuesdays we would gather and share tips and tricks on everything from turning corners on cloth clamshell boxes to controlling the curling of the endsheets when putting a new case on a text block.
Those weekly tip sessions have turned into monthly ones. Before our monthly staff meeting, if someone has a tip or wants opinions about how to solve a treatment problem, we gather as a group to learn from each other or to offer feedback.
Corner repair demo.Jig for corner fills.
Last month we had a double-tip session. Mary presented a tip on using Japanese tissue and paste to fill lost corners on 19th Century publisher’s bindings, and Erin presented a tip on using embossing plates (sold in craft stores) to mimic the pressed-fabric you often see on 19th Century publisher’s bindings. It was an educational and fun tips session.
This month on the 1091 Project we are talking about one of our greatest assets, our student assistants. Like most academic departments, we hire students to help with the day-to-day operations of the lab. We usually have two students who work a total of twenty hours per week during the school year. Occasionally we hire extra students during the year if special projects come up. We have talked before about what we look for in student assistants and the work they do. This month we will discuss how we advertise openings, and the process of hiring and training students.
How We Find Students
Every institution’s hiring workflow is different. We use a campus-wide system to enter critical job details such as the position description, rate of pay, location, hours and supervisor. Once approved, the open position displays on the Library’s jobs website. I also post the positions to DukeList, a Duke-community-only bulletin board.
KellyNoel making special enclosures for large objects. KellyNoel started during the renovation project.
Getting hired in Conservation is not a first-come-first-hired endeavor. I invite students in for a 15-20 minute interview. I give them a tour of the lab and explain what we do, what our students do, and introduce them to the person who will train them and manage their work.
I then sit them down to ask questions as you would with any job applicant:
What skills and experience do you have that would be transferable to this position?
Do you have any job experience or hobbies that would demonstrate good eye-hand coordination and attention to detail?
Do you have experience in a job wherein the work is repetitive but you have to pay close attention?
I want to figure out if they will show up on time, quickly learn the ropes, and be able to work independently but be willing to ask questions if they are stuck. I also try to figure out if they will be a good personality fit. An open lab means you have to work side-by-side with a lot of different people and you need to be able to negotiate that dynamic.
Training
I generally leave the training to Mary, one of our senior technicians. She shows the students where to pick up materials, how to do the rough sort, and how to separate out the shelf-preparation work from the repairs and put them on the appropriate shelves. She also demonstrates how to make various enclosures and pockets, how to do the minor repairs, and what to do with completed work.
Aaron is our newest student. He’s learning how to make four-flap enclosures and sort materials into the workflow.
New students take a few weeks to learn the job, but once they have it we allow them to work fairly independently. We check in regularly to see how they are doing and ask if they have any questions. By the time they are with us for a couple semesters, the students come in, take the work from the shelves and complete it without much oversight other than to convey special project instructions or to follow up on quality control issues.
Training students takes time but it pays off. We rely on their expertise to get a lot of work done and trust them to do a good job. We also get to know them as people and get to cheer them on as they hit academic and personal milestones. Without our students we would get far less done for the library.
This month on the 1091 Project we are talking about one of our greatest assets, our student assistants. Like most academic departments, we hire students to help with the day-to-day operations of the lab. We usually have two students who work a total of twenty hours per week during the school year. Occasionally we hire extra students during the year if 