Welcome Jovana!

Jovana Ivezic, Senior Conservation Technician

Jovana Ivezic, our new Senior Conservation Technician, started work at the end of March just as we were settling into the Governor’s work from home order. Jovana comes to Duke from the Library of Congress where she was a library technician. There she performed a variety of repairs from new spines, paper repairs, and at least one very large post binding.

She housed over 2000 items from the LC Collections in the three years she was there. These skills will come in very handy once we are back onsite and we start making enclosures for our regular workflows and the Lilly Enabling project.

What is your favorite tool?

My favorite tool is a tie between a scalpel with a fresh blade and my small brass triangle.

What is your favorite treatment?

My favorite treatment is a new case, especially in a three-quarters style binding. Nothing more satisfying than giving a sad, beaten up book some new life.

What’s it like starting a new job during a worldwide pandemic?

I never thought I’d ever be starting a job in these kinds of circumstances, especially one that isn’t particularly conducive to teleworking. I will say I’ve enjoyed using the extra time in my apartment to get properly settled in, as well as catch up on readings and training videos I wouldn’t normally have the time to read/watch otherwise. I look forward to getting to work with my new coworkers and colleagues in person once we’re back on campus though, and to check out all the amazing food places I keep being told to try once the stay-at-home order is lifted.

Do you have a memorable treatment you can share?

Here you can see an oversized atlas from the Library of Congress’s Geography & Maps division.

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Due to its extraordinary size, the acidic nature of its pages, and the fact that this atlas was a frequently handled item, I decided that a post binding was the best housing choice. A post binding allows for safer handling by patrons, while protecting the original material better than a regular clamshell or four-flap box ever could.