Category Archives: Conservation

Conservation, Digital Production Center, Manuscript Day

Here’s Your Mule

It’s Manuscript Day in the lab, similar to Boxing Day, wherein we all work on flat paper repair. Today we are continuing the Broadside Project, getting these items ready for their close up in the Digital Production Center. North Carolina is this month’s project, and this little gem caught my eye. It’s from the New Bern (NC) Republican Banner, dated April 1884.

Mary has been repairing the tears and losses on this broadside with Japanese tissue and wheat starch paste. After the tissue is applied, a blotter is placed on top with a weight until dry. When the digitization is complete, these will come back to Conservation for rehousing.

Collaboration, Conservation, Digital Production Center

Ethiopic Manuscript Digitization Project

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As you may know we have been working with the Digital Production Center to digitize the scrolls in the Ethiopic Manuscript collection. I’ve posted some images from that project, not the high-resolution ones the DPC is creating, but some snaps I made during the imaging of items that I found particularly interesting. You can find them in our Flickr Ethiopic Manuscript Project album.

The date ranges are fairly recent but you can see traditional vellum joins and repairs in the scrolls. I always find it interesting how people utilized defects in the skins to their advantage. I also find the graphic depictions to be wonderfully modern and very geographic, and the colors are amazing. You never know what you will find when you start digging through collections. One wooden icon (not the one shown here) has been previously repaired with dental floss. File that under “use what you have on hand.”
Announcements, Conservation, Digital Production Center, Preservation, Videos

Celebrating 10 Years of Preservation: 10 years, 10 People

This year marks the Preservation Department’s tenth year serving the Duke University Libraries. We are planning several events to mark the occasion which will include exhibits, an open house, and interviews with staff members.

We will start our staff interviews with our longest-serving team member Winston Atkins, Preservation Officer for the libraries. Winston came to Duke from NC State a decade ago and was tasked with starting the Preservation Department. You can also find this and other videos at our Duke University Libraries You Tube channel.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecwAI2AgXOY

We would love to hear from you if you have favorite Preservation, Conservation or DPC story to share, or would just like to give us a shout out and let us know how we are doing. Contact me and I’ll compile them for a blog post later.

Conservation, Preservation

Confessions of a Conservation Librarian

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Yesterday I said to myself, “Self, you haven’t backed up your computer files lately. Perhaps you should.” To whit I replied, “Meh, maybe after I download this software so I can stream videos.”

Of course my computer crashed this morning. I tried rebooting, rebooting again, and again. Nothing. All those files and images…perhaps they can be saved but my luck doesn’t normally run that way.

*Sigh* How many times during the semester do I tell my preservation students about the fragility of electronic media and documents? How many times in my professional life do I tell people that they really need to back up their files regularly because you don’t know when a problem will strike and you risk losing everything? I told you so…and I told myself so.

So, loyal readers, go to your computer right now and back up your files. Go. Now. I’ll wait for you to come back….there, don’t you feel better?

Conservation

The Elves Have Left the Tugboat (or Thoughts on Binding Music)

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Conservation does a lot of pamphlet binding for the Music Library. You would think that music scores would be fairly easy to work with, but then you would be wrong.

Scores come in a variety of sizes from miniature to over two feet tall. They often come with CD’s or multiple parts that need to go into a pocket. They can be folios printed on two sides that have been folded down the middle and stapled, or they may be printed as single-sided sheets that need to be put together in some way so the sheets don’t get separated. Scores can be adhesive bound, stapled through the fold, spiral bound or comb bound. Sometimes they are paginated, often they are not. Then there are the random arrangements wherein the musician decides on what order to play the piece.

There is nothing straight forward about getting music scores ready for the shelf. Reading music helps, and paying attention to the frontice material is a must.

Last year 30% of the pamphlets we bound came from our Music Library. Every now and then we get a title that we all fall in love with. If you have ever played Dead Elf Tugboat, we would love to hear from you!

Boxing Day, Conservation

What Good Is A Box?

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A brittle book from the general collections came in today whose binding is holding on only by its spine lining. The paper and sewing are brittle and several pages are loose. It failed even a single fold of a (very very tiny) double-fold test, so it is too brittle to repair. No problem, we’ll make a box and give the librarian the option of having a digital or paper surrogate made.

What caught my eye, however, was the note she wrote saying “Please repair spine, don’t put in a box since that won’t help.” Until we decide to make a surrogate, boxing actually does help:

  • It keeps a fragile book with loose pieces contained in one place
  • It provides protection from wear and tear
  • It reduces light exposure
  • It alerts a reader that this is a fragile book
  • It keeps a brittle book in the stacks and available for the next use (this book can still be used, as long as the patron is very careful…we trust that they will be)

We try to repair everything that comes to us but sometimes we just can’t and we need to do something else. Creating a protective enclosure is one of those things we can do to keep a brittle book in the collections.

Conservation

What’s In Conservation? A Map the Size of London (almost)

What’s 6-3/4 feet high by 13 feet long? This London map printed in 1747 by John Rocque of course! Originally issued in 24 panels, this map is a very detailed map of the city complete with pubs, churches and other points of interest. It came to our attention through a cataloger in RBMSCL who needs it opened and flattened so he can describe it.


This arrived in six rolls, each roll having four, 40 by 70 centimeter panels attached to a linen backing (pictured above). The first step was to meet with the curator to discuss treatment options. Everyone decided that separating each panel would make it easier to catalog and store, and ultimately much more usable as an object. As these were originally printed in panels we all felt that separating them was acceptable.

After getting the go-ahead we carefully cut the panels at the “seams” leaving each panel adhered to its linen support. Next we dry-cleaned the front and back of each panel to remove surface dirt. Each roll will go into a humidification chamber (pictured left) to relax the paper and fabric so it can be unrolled and flattened between felts and a heavy weight. Once flat, we will repair the damaged areas and create a housing for them as a group. Then back they go to cataloging and ultimately the shelf so that you, too, can request to look at them.

Conservation, What Others Say About us

Duke Magazine Highlights Conservation


Aaron Kirschenfeld of Duke Magazine wrote a nice piece on the Verne and Tanya Roberts Conservation Lab that appears in the January/February Duke Magazine. An online version is also available.

Apparently, a few years ago Aaron heard through the grapevine that there were people in Trent Hall doing interesting things to books. That, of course, was us when we were off site waiting for our beautiful new lab facilities to be constructed. Thanks to Duke Magazine and to Aaron for allowing us to share what we do with the Duke alumni community.

P.S. The now-famous banana book makes an appearance in the print version.