Currently viewing the category: "In the Conservation Lab"

In the Lab: The Mad Dog, or, Take Care of Yourself

On March 7, 2013 By

This delightful manuscript item came to conservation for some minor repairs and housing.  It is an eighteenth-century card game with a sheet of instructions describing itself as “The Mad Dog, or Take Care of Yourself: A Company Play with coloured Plates on 12 Cards in a Paper Case.”

The faces of the cards [...]

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Conserving the Broadside Collection

On December 13, 2012 By

Conservation is nearing the end of a project that we have been working on since 2009, the broadside collection.  In addition to broadsides, this collection includes thousands of posters, handbills, maps, diplomas, and a variety of paper ephemera.  We in the conservation department have been coordinating with the Digital Production Center (DPC) to [...]

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Boxy Lady

On September 27, 2012 By

Figuring out suitable storage for historical artifacts in a collection is a daily challenge for archivists in the Rubenstein Library’s Technical Services Dept. Our goal is to provide easy access to the artifacts while protecting them in a safe and secure manner. Many times we can manage this with the standard boxes and padding materials [...]

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In the Lab: Housing Papyri and Early Manuscripts

On May 25, 2012 By

Two big rehousing projects have been underway in the conservation lab for several months now.  One, the papyrus project, has been mentioned in the conservation department’s own blog, Preservation Underground.

Duke’s papyri collection is one of the largest in the country with approximately 1400 items, each housed between sheets [...]

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A Home for our Dragons (and Ghosts, and Bunnies…)

On May 10, 2012 By

One of my ongoing processing projects for the past year was to arrange and describe the Edwin and Terry Murray Collection of Role-Playing Games, a vast collection with thousands of books, boxed games, miniature pieces, card sets, magazines — all relating to the world of RPGs. Most of [...]

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The Mystery of Emily Johnson’s Headstone

On February 3, 2012 By

According to oral tradition, Emily Johnson’s headstone was discovered in the 1960s at the construction site of the Divinity School addition.  It remained in a closet there until 1993, when it was transferred to the custody of the Duke University Archives.   How the headstone ended up on campus and where it [...]

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Robert Burns, Unglued

On January 26, 2012 By

The Rubenstein Library owns a well-worn copy of Robert Burns’ Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect that was selected for conservation treatment in October of 2010. The full sheepskin binding was in fair condition and broken at the board hinges.  A previous spine repair attempt with what appeared to be Elmer’s glue left the leather [...]

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It Takes a Village to House a Village

On December 19, 2011 By

Sorting through the unprocessed contents of an archival collection can be compared to a treasure hunt – sometimes you find an unexpected gem that produces an impromptu “ooh,” but then after the initial excitement wears off, you have to figure out what you’re actually looking at and then decide what to do with it.

A [...]

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In the Lab: Scrapbooking for Victory, Part Two

On November 11, 2011 By

In 1918, the week of November 11-18 was not only a celebration of the end of World War I, but was coincidentally also a week of massive fundraising by the United War Work Campaign to support troops and boost morale until their work was done.  The scrapbook of posters and pamphlets from the campaign was [...]

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Medical Move Mondays: Conserving the Collections

On July 11, 2011 By

It’s week three of our series on the History of Medicine Collections‘ move from the Medical Center Library on Duke’s medical campus to the RBMSCL on West Campus.

Last week, I mentioned that Jessica found the occasional book with the cover falling [...]

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