A mystery installation showed up on the uppermost floors of the library recently. I think you can guess which one of these is our favorite.
All posts by Beth Doyle
Quick Pic: Frightening Finds
Nothing quite gets you thanking your lucky stars that you live in the 21st Century as working with the History of Medicine Collection in the David M. Rubenstein Library.
We have been helping to retrofit the boxes containing historic medical instruments in preparation of our move to swing space for the next phase of renovation.
We had a good time playing a game I call, “what in the world is this thing and what body part does it apply to?” Depending on your “ick” tolerance it can be a fun game. Do you want to take a guess at what this is?
Conservation Technician Position Announced
Conservation Tech, Library Assistant
(1 Year Term Appointment)
Under the general supervision of the Head of Conservation, creates custom enclosures and performs minor treatments for the repair and rehousing of special collections materials. S/he works with members of the Conservation Services Department to prepare materials for moving items off site and to temporary swing space as part of the Perkins renovation project.
For a complete job description and instructions for applying, click here.
It Takes A Village To House A Village
The Doris Duke Archives recently sent us this “Tiny Thai Village” for boxing. Read about its history on The Devil’s Tale.
The TTV came in a small box with all of the models inside. Obviously a box half the size of a Twinkie would disappear in the stacks and make access difficult. While these models aren’t fragile per se, they are delicate and the little houses had no real protection.
Our goals for the final housing were three-fold
- The new enclosure had to be big enough to go to the stacks
- Each little house needed its own compartment for safety and security
- You needed to be able to lift out each model with your giant fingers
Experimental Box-making
I thought this would be easy, but it took a lot of trial and error to figure it out. I grabbed a standard Metal-Edge box meant to house cabinet cards and started experimenting. Here’s what I did:
- Created a tray with a compartment for each house
- Built up the inside so that the models would be level with the top of the box
- Inset the original box so it was at the same level as the models
- Lined the lid with Volara to provide a cushion should they get shaken
- Labeled the box with big “Fragile-Do Not Tilt” labels
The Final Box
While 
each model can still move around in its compartment, they don’t knock into each other and you can still get your fingers in to take them out. You can also quickly tell if one is missing since each compartment should be occupied.
Although I would likely do something a bit different if I were asked to house this again, I think this enclosure achieves the goals and will provide more protection than the original box.
Last Minute Gift Ideas
With contributions from Winston Atkins, Preservation Librarian
Never fear, your secret holiday helper is here! We have for you some last minute gift ideas for Hanukkah, Christmas, Winter Solstice, Kwanzaa or New Year’s.
Heck, these make great hostess gifts, thank-you gifts, or birthday gifts, especially if someone’s birthday falls smack dab in the middle of all of these holidays (ahem).
Gifts under $20
- Optical Media Pen to safely mark your DVD’s.
- Bookbinder’s awl to make sewing stations (don’t poke your eye out, kid).
- Really nice microspatulas from Polistini, you can never have enough good spatulas.
- Museum Pest Voodoo Doll, collect them all for hours of pinning fun!
- William Barrow’s classic “Permanence/Durability of the Book, Test Data of Naturally Aged Papers,” because accelerated aging just isn’t the same.
Gifts to $50
- Field Guide to Disaster Response and Disaster Wheel, always be prepared.
- Archival baseball collectible box, keeps them and your bats safe at home.
- Textile Preservation Kit for Great Grandpa’s Army uniform (other kits available).
- Self powered radio or a Wireless weather station make great additions to a disaster kit.
- Caring for Your Collections, a guide for the serious collector or curator.
- The Preservation Manager’s Guide to Cost Analysis, a must-have for figuring out what things really cost.
Gifts to $100
- Line, Shade and Shadow: The Fabrication and Preservation of Architectural Drawing, by Lois Olcott-Price, leading expert in these things.
- Cutting Is More Fun print from Jeff Peachey (really, ANYTHING from Mr. Peachey is great, especially his knives).
- Digitization Basics workshop by CCAHA.
- It’s membership season, how about a membership to ALA, AIC, SAA or AMIA or their local or state preservation organization.
Gifts over $100
- IPI’s Aesthics, Craft and Care of the Fine Art Print workshop, five days of hands-on experience.
- Archeaology of Bookbinding by John Szirmai, a fantastic resource for early binding history.
- Pergamena vellum-making workshop. DIY vellum!
- Nothing says “Happy Holidays” like a Nilfisk Vacuum cleaner.
- Digitizing Vintage Photographs workshop by NEDCC.
- IPI’s Aesthics, Craft and Care of the Fine Art Print workshop, five days of hands-on experience.
The usual disclaimer: Listing does not imply endorsement of any product or vendor.
Happy 2nd Birthday To Us!
Today our blog turns two years old! In the spirit of Thanksgiving we wish to thank all of our readers and colleagues for helping us make this blog successful. It’s been a great two years filled with weird and wonderful things.
Our birthday wish? to continue to bring you more news and views from the Lower Level, and to engage our readers in more conversations.
What kinds of posts do you like to read? What don’t you know about our work that we can highlight? What drives you to respond to a blog post? Oatmeal spice cake left over from yesterday’s feast counts as a fiber-filled breakfast item, right?
Image from “Two African Trips With Notes and Suggestions on Big Game Preservation in Africa,” by Edward North Buxton (1902). This item is in the lab so that we can fix the large fold-out map that accompanies the text.
What’s In The Lab: Peeling Eyeballs!
By Erin Hammeke, Conservator for Special Collections
The History of Medicine collections continue to delight us in Conservation as we work to stabilize some of the most-used items. I just finished repairing Bartisch’s Ophthalmodouleia, das ist Augendienst:…, a work on Ophthalmology printed in 1583.
This item was recently featured in the exhibit, Anamated Anatomies. In addition to depicting some interesting and seemingly painful eye treatments and surgeries of the 16th century, the book contains two pages of hand-colored anatomical flaps.
I repaired a page that depicts the anatomy of the eye in layers. Like many of the flap books we have examined, the flaps were fragile and showed signs of damage from use. The eyeball flaps had received several previous repairs, including a fairly early shellac seal repair.
For this treatment, I removed one of the previous repairs that was poorly placed and causing damage to the outer flap, and I re-repaired it using tissue and wheat starch paste. I also stabilized the remaining flaps and flattened mis-folds using a light application of wheat starch paste.
Quick Pic: Stick A Flag On It
We have these blue flags that our colleagues can use to alert us to damaged books. They are intended to be placed inside the damaged book and, or taped onto a bin if you have a bunch of things to send to the lab. They aren’t supposed to be taped TO the books themselves.
The lesson here is that care and handling training is never done. People forget, they get in a hurry, or they just plain don’t think things through. I’m sure the person that taped this flag to these books didn’t intend harm, they just didn’t think that tape could harm book covers.
Maybe this was a new student assistant and we haven’t caught them yet with our indoctrination care and handling training. To the Bat Mobile! We have work to do!!
Quick Pic: Boxing Day Aftermath
You know you had a great Boxing Day when all of the recycle bins are overflowing with scraps.
The aftermath (left), and the results (right).
Quick Pic: Visitors in the Lab
Dr. Zhang Shilin, Deputy Head of Archives and Professor in the School of Information Resource Management at Renmin University of China. She is here visiting Duke Libraries for three months. Welcome Shilin!