The “Thigh High Boots” meme has been making us laugh lately (including our favorite one). Who doesn’t need a laugh right now? Images from the Naturalist Library: Mammalia, a collection of works that was recently adopted through the Duke University Library’s Adopt-a-Book Program.
Just before quarantine we got our new wall-mounted roll storage unit from the carpentry shop.
We have a larger stand-alone roll storage rack where we keep rolls of book cloth and Melinex. But we recently moved the encapsulator and it became clear we needed to move the Melinex storage closer to the new location. The stand-alone rack was too large for that space so Rachel researched wall mounted racks. Nothing “off the shelf” fit the space, so she worked with the carpentry shop on the specifications. The new rack stores two rolls and hangs high enough that one of our height-adjustable tables can be positioned underneath for ease of use.
With the library closing to all staff at 5:00pm today, we are rising to the challenge and adapting to working remotely. With some of us having attended the Southeast Regional Conservation Associations annual meeting last month, we decided to get together to share what we had learned.
Here Rachel is showing a chart of the Triboelectric series (right before we all remembered we could just share screeens 🙂 ). It’s nice to be able to connect with colleagues so easily, despite everything that is going on.
Stay safe out there!
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Knocking off protons
Lead me to you
May all your days together be golden.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Today We Learned: Always read the label before opening a box from the History of Medicine collection. Moving aside the tissue paper packing, we were greeted by this sculpture a little too early this morning. We were not prepared for such a creepy surprise! Made by medical illustrator and sculptor Charlotte Holt in 1961, this hand-painted plaster relief sculpture depicts treatment of fetal skull and clavicle fractures. Holt’s attention to detail is excellent… which makes it all the more disturbing.
It’s so nice when folks come down to the Perkins Library basement to visit the lab, and this week we had quite a few visitors from very different parts of the campus community. Early in the week, around 20 incoming freshman came to learn about the conservation program as part of Project Search, a program designed as an introduction to undergraduate research at Duke. Then this morning, we were visited by a tour offered through the Duke Alumni Association.
It’s always a pleasure to share our work with Duke students (both current and former), because they are just so personable and naturally curious about the process of conservation and the library materials we have to show. Thanks for dropping by!
Today is the last day for Garrette Lewis-Thomas, our second HBCU Library Alliance/University of Delaware Winterthur intern. The end of this two month internship really snuck up on us! As you may have read in some of Beth’s recent posts, we have thrown a ton of information and instruction at Garrette in the last eight weeks – and she has accomplished so much in that time.
We decided to wrap up with a fun little intro to some basic bookbinding: Coptic style bindings.
These books are a simple, non-adhesive structure that mirrors some of the earliest multi-section codices. An unsupported chain stitch serves as both the primary sewing and the board attachment. The books are very flexible and open flat, which makes them wonderful little notebooks. We dressed them up a bit by covering the boards with decorative paper and stamping Garrette’s initials in gold on the front cover using our Kwikprint hot stamp.
We will miss Garrette so much, but wish her luck in the coming school year!
When I see a very large book covered in silver metallic paper sitting on our shelves, of course I have to pull it down and take a look. This recently acquired catalog of prints from the Sumo Museum collection has some really wonderful images, but this one is definitely my favorite (more about the artist).
The Rubenstein Library’s History of Medicine Collection always seems to provide the most unusual examples of illustration. This text (catalog record here) by English physician Robert Fludd, published by Johann Theodor de Bry in 1623, is no exception. The anatomical specimen is both comical and gruesome…but also strangely familiar.
Johann Theodor’s father, Theodor de Bry, was also prominent publisher and engraver, and many of his works on exploration of the New World can be found in Duke’s collection. Theordor’s 1590 engraving, The Trvve Picture of One Picte from the second edition of Thomas Hariot’s book A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, appears in the same pose.
While these two books look very different, they are actually the exact same edition. They were both printed with the same setting of type and on the same paper. The book on the left is in a later binding than the one on the right, with some added edge gilding. But why the difference in textblock thickness? The one on the left was pressed very hard by the binder. It’s pretty incredible how compact a textblock can become with enough pressure -and pressing is not without its downsides. These books were letterpress printed and the dimensional impression of the type, which is an artifact of the printing process, has been completely pressed out of the thinner copy.
