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Category Archives: What’s In The Lab
An Adorable Fire Hazard
We’ve written before (many times) about the unusual and sometimes problematic objects that we find in books. Scrapbooks tend to be the worst offenders for this situation. In most cases, the inserted object is either damaging the pages around it or too bulky and deforming the book. In the case of this scrapbook from the Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans family papers, though, the problem item poses a danger to the collections around the scrapbook, too.
Several of the scrapbook pages have paper matchbooks mounted to them. Much like the ticket stubs that appear alongside, the printed matchbook is a keepsake to remember a special occasion. These matches come from a Longchamps restaurant, where Mary dined before attending a show. The exterior of this matchbook is a metallic gold, but the real design highlight appears inside.
The matches are shaped and printed to look like rows of little chefs!
This scrapbook dates from the 1930s, so these are probably “safety matches” – meaning they cannot ignite without the contacting the striking strip on the cover of the matchbook. They are also quite old at this point, and may not even light using the strip. There is still a risk to the collection, however, so Rachel Penniman did some research to determine the best way to make them safe before rehousing the scrapbook.
There are a couple of options for dealing with matches in a collection. The quickest solution is to physically remove the matches. In another example from the same scrapbook (pictured above), the bottom of the matchbook and all the individual matches were torn off before mounting. If all of the matchbooks were treated this way, then we wouldn’t have to worry, but a lot of information would be lost.
One of the individual matches (already used) is also taped to this page, so we can see that Longchamps used more than one chef design in their matchbooks.
Clipping off just the match head could also be a good solution for removing the potential for ignition while retaining more of the original material. If the matches in these books were more of a plain design, that could be a viable option here, but we just couldn’t bring ourselves to decapitate the little chefs. Luckily, there was another way.
Our colleagues at Northwestern University have developed a method for coating the match heads to prevent lighting. To treat the match heads, Rachel applied three coatings of a matte acrylic medium: one dilute layer to penetrate and then two coatings of undiluted acrylic to form a protective layer. After the coating had cured, the scrapbook was ready to be boxed and returned to the stacks. The acrylic medium is not tacky when dry, so it will not stick to the matchbook cover or facing scrapbook pages when the book is closed.
One of the major challenges of caring for a large research collection is the wide variety of objects and materials that are contained within it. When confronted with potentially harmful items like these matchbooks, it is so helpful to read about how other conservators have dealt with them.
Some Boxes Are Just Too Fancy
One of the first lines of defense for a damaged book is a well-fitting enclosure. It can prevent loss of any loose pieces or additional strain on weaker binding materials from handling during shelving. Many of the books in special collections were boxed long ago or before their acquisition. When those items come into the lab for treatment, we evaluate the box for fit, function, and artifactual value to determine if it should be retained or replaced.
Lately I’ve been working on a 1545 edition of The Byrth of Mankynde from the Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine collection. Originally published in 1540, this book is the oldest manual for midwifery printed in English. It contains several copper plate engravings of anatomy – apparently some of the first in England to be produced by roller press. My favorites are the figures of fetuses in utero, which look more like babies floating in light bulbs or balloons.
The book had been boxed decades ago in a very nice quarter-leather slipcase, with a shaped spine and false raised bands to make it look like a binding when sitting on the shelf. The maroon goatskin has been tooled in gold to mark the title, author, and publication information on the spine and along the “boards” where the leather meets the red cloth.
Slipcases can be damaging to a book if they fit too tightly, often causing abrasion on the boards as the book slides in and out. This slipcase avoids those problems with a 4-flap enclosure, which can be removed with a red ribbon pull tab on the fore-edge. Unfortunately that ribbon has started to split and is barely hanging on at this point.
The inside of the 4-flap is covered with a red marbled paper that matches the colors of the other materials very well. It even includes small metallic flakes that sparkle a little as you open the box.
The interior of the slipcase is covered with the same marbled paper.
While these decorative papers really enhance the visual appeal of the box, they can present a number of problems for the book itself. Often the dyes or pigments used in colored papers can rub off onto a book through normal handling; if the binding material is lighter in color you might see some staining on the board edges.
The bigger risk from these colored materials, though, is if the box ever gets wet. Much like a red sock in a load of white laundry, water-soluble dyes can easily transfer to the pages of the book and cause staining that may be impossible to remove. I worried that in a water event this box could turn all those little lightbulb babies bright pink.
An easy way to test for solubility is with a basic water drop test. Immediately after placing a very small drop of water onto the surface of the marbled paper, I used a piece of clean blotter to wick it up. Looking at the scrap of blotter, you can see if there was any discoloration or transfer of the solubilized media. You can repeat this process a couple of times with larger drops, left for a longer duration.
I could see some transfer of red to the blotter when the water was in contact with the marbled paper for only a few seconds. The same test on the cloth produced a far more dramatic result.
I appreciate the quality of craftsmanship that went into making this enclosure. A lot of effort was put into making a very deluxe box for this significant and valuable book. The leather is pared well and the titling is very clean. The maker clearly spent time selecting leather, cloth, and marbled paper that went together. Unfortunately all those fancy materials present too much of a risk to the book and will need to be replaced. While the cloth-covered boxes that we make are pretty visually plain, that’s actually one of their strengths. The lack of decoration or color is often the safer choice… and you don’t want your box to outshine the book anyway.
When Items Keep Getting Bigger
Some treatments require a lot of coordination with our colleagues over in special collections to ensure that that they have a good permanent home in the stacks. We construct custom housing to meet the specific needs of the item for storage, but we also need to be sure that the enclosure we design will actually fit on a shelf and can moved from the stacks to the reading room. Sometimes the description and shelving location in the catalog also need to be updated if the item changes size during treatment.
This 17th century English indenture and deed is a recent example that left the lab much larger than it arrived. It came to us folded up in a relatively small package, measuring around 7″ square. It unfolded into a pretty large (20″ x 30″) manuscript legal document, written in ink on parchment with the remains of five parchment strips and wax seals along the bottom. The earliest text dates from 1620, with five individuals (Symon Courte, Edward Pyne, Thomas Alcastle, Humfree Quicke, and yeoman John Hare) granting property rights in West Monkton to two people (Baldwine Wallet and yeoman Richard God). Additional text on the back dated 57 years later grants further inheritance of property rights to Robert Alcastle (Thomas Alcastle’s grandson and executor of his father’s estate).
The bottom edge of the parchment is folded over so that the five parchment strips can lace through two layers and be held securely in place. The parchment strips were twisted together and rough balls of red wax were affixed to stop the strips from being removed. Some of the signatories wrote their names across both the document’s folded lower edge and the visible square of the parchment strip as an authentication or security measure.
The document was folded both vertically and horizontally several times to make storage easier, but it made opening and reading the document quite a challenge. The parchment has a strong memory and will fold back onto itself without being weighted down. Yellowed adhesive residue from pressure sensitive tape was visible along the top edge – maybe used as a previous mounting solution. The wax seals had also became quite banged up over the years, so only one of the wax balls remained intact. The broken remains of another had been wrapped in a thin textile and tied onto the parchment strip with string. Little bits of red wax would sometimes fall out of the pouch when handled.
After dry cleaning the front and back of the parchment and removing as much of the tape residue as I could, I performed some minor flattening of the parchment sheet. My goal was to flatten it enough that the document would lay open on its own, while still retaining the evidence of how it was folded up for storage. I didn’t want any more fragments of the broken wax seal to be lost, so I took the remains out of the textile pouch and wrapped them in a little pleated package of soft Japanese paper, adhered closed with wheat starch paste. This seamed like a better solution than sealing them in some kind of stable plastic, like polyethylene, since the paper doesn’t crinkle so loudly. I tucked the package back inside the textile wrapping and secured it closed with some small stitches thin linen thread, toned to match.
My goal for the enclosure design was to protect all the different parts of the document, and also to help hold it flat should there be any changes in relative humidity. Boxes for parchment covered books often use of a restraining flap, so I thought something similar could be employed here with a rigid portfolio.
I knew this enclosure would be stored flat on the shelf, but I still didn’t want the document to move around too much inside – to protect the surface from abrasion, but also so as not to risk further damage to the parchment strips and wax. I cut a sheet of paper just a bit bigger than the dimensions of the document, then affixed wide paper corners to hold it in place. This was mounted to a sheet of matboard, which also had a sheet of E-flute corrugated board laminated to the back. This makes the matboard stiffer without adding much weight. Soft twill tape was laced through the board around where the two remaining wax seals were hanging, so they could be tied down and would not bounce around inside the box when it is served to a patron in the reading room.
The portfolio top flap is also made of laminated sheets of matboard and blue corrugated, with a Tyvek tape hinge along the top edge that attaches it to the bottom board. All of the corners were rounded and the bottom edge of the top flap’s matboard was sanded to take off the hard edge.
The custom sized portfolio ended up being larger than any of our standard metal edge boxes, so I created a custom fit telescoping lid box out of corrugated to hold it. Unfortunately we also don’t stock corrugated sheets large enough – so I had to join two sheets together with tyvek tape to make either the base or the lid. A third piece of corrugated was glued to the outside of both the lid and the base to stop the tape join from flexing when the box was lifted or tilted. The enclosure got a photo label at the bottom corner to help with identifying it on the shelf.
Removing the document from this enclosure to examine both front and back is fairly easy. After untying the twill tape, the parchment can be gently lifted out from under two of the paper corners, and then you can fully slide the document out. It actually requires two people to flip it over, since it is so large. While making this enclosure, I made sure to check that it wasn’t too large for the bigger shelves in the stacks and that it could fit through a standard-width door while resting on a cart.
To the Bookbinder.
The ancient Greek mathematician Euclid is widely known as the father of geometry, and his 13 book treatise, Elements, was one of the most famous mathematical texts in antiquity. The original text (written around 300 BCE) is no longer available to us, but it was widely copied and translated into many different languages over the centuries, with the first English translation appearing in 1570 CE. There have been many editions of the book as scholars analyze and retranslate extant manuscript copies, along with early commentaries and annotations.
This 1719 English edition recently came across my bench with detached boards and powdery leather, fairly common condition problems for a leather trade binding from this period. The textblock was a bit dirty, with grime building up particularly at the folded engravings. As I was surface cleaning the first of them, I noticed some interesting instructions for the bookbinder included at the bottom of the print:
The binder did successfully follow the instructions to make the diagrams visible “clear out of the book.”
It’s a useful arrangement to have the sheet extend that far out, so as the reader is going through the steps used to construct an object using a straightedge and compass, they can view the entire diagram and follow along visually. Otherwise, if the diagrams were bound in the usual way, the recto of one page might obscure the diagram you were looking at and you would be forced to flip back and forth.
What I love about these simple instructions is that they provide a little glimpse into the design and production of this object. Many tradespeople contributed to making the book, but they were working in different places and at different times. Including instructions for assembly in the prints is very helpful. For books sold in sheets, the printer or book seller may never meet the binder and be able to explain how it should be assembled. Had the book come to the lab in a worse state, with broken sewing or parts detached, that little note might also be useful for me.
Defy Inflation by Cruising
Much of the news this week is dominated by either underwater ship wrecks or inflation. After doing a little research about an early 20th century literary magazine that came across my bench, I discovered that one advertisement serendipitously intersects both of those topics.
This copy of The Bookman came in for some minor repairs before going on exhibit. The covers are the main advertising spaces for this publication and mostly feature some pretty dull descriptions of books available from George H. Doran or Harcourt, Brace and Company. It being June, the image of a steam ship and “Ideal Summer Vacations” advertised on the back really caught my eye.
Eight days in Bermuda for only $90 sounds really nice, but was it a good deal in 1924? The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI Inflation Calculator estimates that sum to be the same as around $1600 today. That seems like a reasonable amount to spend on a long cruise; however, after a quick search I discovered that many of the major cruise lines today are offering the same voyage for less than half of that price. Cruises (at least to Bermuda) have beat inflation!
I’m sure the accommodations on the modern vessels are a lot more comfortable than a hundred year old steam ship, too. In reading about the ships listed in the advertisement, I discovered that they both ended up sinking. The Fort St. George was destroyed by British aircraft during WWII, while the Fort Victoria only sailed another 5 years from the date of this ad before being struck by another ship and sinking in New York Harbor. The wreckage was later dynamited to prevent it damaging to other boats. Luckily all of the Victoria’s passengers were rescued by the Coast Guard before she sank.
Artistry in A Book of Colombian Poetry
Spanish is not my native language. Luckily, I can read it well enough to appreciate this compelling and solemn work by the Columbian poet Francia Elena Goenaga. The cover image does not reveal much about the nature of the book. However, the title reads “Babiuscas Para Niños Muertos Que No Pueden Dormir”, which translates to “Lullabies For Dead Children That Can’t Sleep”.
The title sets a tone that is quite somber. This is further highlighted by the subheading on the title page, which reads “Para los niños Colombianos que han sufrido violencia y sus madres”. This translates to “For the Colombian children who have suffered from violence and their mothers”. As dedications go, this is a specific and sentimental one. It inspires one to be pensive as they delve deeper into the book and read the poetry within.
Accompanying said poetry are a set of 14 illustrations that create an intriguing juxtaposition with the text.
Colorful studies of various dead birds appear throughout the book in striking detail. There is something to be said about comparing the visual of something dead to something sleeping. And since this is a book of “lullabies” in the form of poems, I find the choice to combine them with these illustrations remarkably provoking.
When a book this delicate and artistic come across my bench, I want to treat it delicately as well. As you may have noticed, this book was not originally bound.
It is too risky to send a book like this to the stacks since pages could be lost. The best solution for a book like this is to sew it into a pamphlet binder. Now our patrons can request this book and enjoy its artistry safely.
An Artist Book in a Conservation World
Here at Duke University Libraries, we’re fortunate to have a stunning collection of artist books from all over the world. Just like a regular book, artist books can come in a range of shapes and sizes. Some, however, come in more unusual shapes than most, which in turn can pose some interesting conservation questions.
One such book is the “Oubey: Mindkiss” book.
The Art
As you’ve probably noticed, this is not simply a book. “Oubey: Mindkiss” is made up of a sculptural slipcase containing five separate books.
Each book is devoted to the work of t late artist Oubey and is organized by the medium of the work or the time period the work was made.
The piece is clearly a work of art in itself. This is all the more evident by the fact that it has won multiple awards for its design. However, there are features of this item that have to be addressed from the view of a conservator, rather than one of an artist.
The Concerns
For one, the sculptural top of the slipcase consists of shapes and edges that are noticeably sharp. Pair that with the hard plastic material it’s made of, and you have an item that is bound to do some damage.
I am mostly referring to the damage the slipcase would do to any object placed beside it, but honestly this slipcase could probably hurt your hands as well if not handled carefully.
If this item were to sit as is on a shelf next to other items as normal, there is no way the stiff plastic edges wouldn’t eventually catch, snag, or tear the item beside it.
Another common problem with slipcases is how easily the books within them can fall out. These books are no exception due to the slippery, metallic material they are covered with. That combined with the equally slippery plastic case means the books have an especially high risk of sliding around.
Additionally, the plastic of the slipcase might be doing damage to the books inside of it over time. Although the books are still reflective and metallic (I provided proof in the following photo), if you look at the covers more closely you can see many horizontal scratch marks across the surface of each cover.
This observation is more of an assumption than a proven fact, but my guess is that these scratch marks are the result of the repetitive in and out motion of the books when they are removed or inserted in to the slipcase. The books fit rather snugly into the case, so they could be rubbing up against the inside whenever they move.
So, what can a conservation specialist do?
The Conclusion
Unfortunately, I can’t fix the issue regarding the covers of the books. Even if I knew how of a way treat metallic coatings (which I certainly don’t), something would still have to be done about the material of the slipcase rubbing up against the covers in the first place. An extreme solution would be to refrain from taking the books out of the slipcase at all, but then future readers would lose access to a significant portion of the information this item has to offer.
On a more positive note, something can be done about the nature of the slipcase. Luckily that solution is simple. We just make a box for it.
Does it feel a bit like hiding away a piece of art? Sure. However, as a library, one of our priorities is maintaining our collections while providing access to them. Making a box will protect our collections while also insuring that “Oubey: Mindkiss” is safer to handle for future patrons. And that’s a win for everyone.
Hot Property
By Rachel Penniman, Conservation Specialist
Back in early 2020 Henry gave a little peek into a project I was working on. When four architectural drawings of the Benjamin N. Duke House on 5th Avenue in New York City were acquired by the Rubenstein Library they were removed from their frames in order to incorporate them into the Semans family papers. After the drawings were removed from their frames the staff in the Rubenstein Library Technical Services department found they had been mounted directly onto a non-archival foam-core backing. The drawings were sent to Conservation to see if we could remove the poor quality board.
These drawings were created by a reproduction process called aniline printing which was used in the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s and is identifiable by the distinctive green background color and blueish-black lines. These prints are not on paper but on drafting cloth; a cotton or linen fiber fabric that is heavily starched and rolled to give a smooth surface. Aniline prints fade quickly with exposure to light and are sensitive to heat, humidity, alkalinity, and a number of solvents including alcohols. The starches and additives in the drafting cloth can also be very sensitive to heat and water, and the acidic process of aniline printing degrades the cloth over time making it fragile. So my toolbox of conservator tricks to remove the backings was really limited: no heat, no humidification, and few safe solvents.
I could tell there was another layer between the foam core board and the architectural drawing but it was hard to tell what was going on back there. The backing board was attached with long 2” wide strips of a very sticky, waxy adhesive. I managed to separate the board by hand, lifting it away with a thin spatula and discovered something I have never seen before.
The entire back of every drawing was covered with big sheets of cream colored, self-adhesive plastic like you might use to line your kitchen shelves. It’s commonly called contact paper, though there’s nothing paper about it. The plastic used in these products is usually polyvinyl chloride which degrades very quickly and destructively over time so it needed to be removed before it caused further damaged to the drawings. Although the adhesive on this product is weak in order to allow you to lift and reposition it during installation on a kitchen cabinet, the drafting cloth was too fragile in many places to just peel it away. I needed to find a way to more gently remove the contact paper but my options were limited. After a lot of solvent testing and experimentation I found that timed application of a small vapor chamber of solvent would soften the adhesive on the contact paper enough to gently lift it away without leaving an adhesive residue behind and without damaging the print or the drafting cloth.
Working slowly across each drawing I softened the contact paper backing and gently peeled it away to reveal lots of self-adhesive tape had also been applied directly to the back of the drawing. This object was like an onion: full of layers! Some of the tape came off along with the contact paper but the rest I removed with a small spatula and a crepe eraser. I then repaired the tears with a very thin, green toned archival paper. Whoever put the tape down was heavy handed and I often found there were no tears or damage beneath the tape at all.
This treatment was a good example of how sometimes less is more. Whoever applied hundreds of inches of tape, layers of contact paper, and huge areas of sticky adhesive to attach foam core backing board surely thought they were helping to protect a valued item. Instead they created a mess that took weeks to undo.
The best part about removing all of those layers was revealing a manufacturer’s mark printed in pale purple ink on the back that reads:
Copied by
Peerless Blue Print Company
122 East 14th
New York
Phone 168-18th
This mark helps us to date when and where these drawings were created and would have been lost if all those layers weren’t removed.
The property shown in these historic architectural drawings has recently been restored and is now on the market. The 8 bedroom, 10 bathroom, 20,000 square foot home which is directly across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art can be yours for just $80 million. Hopefully it’s not also held together with tape and contact paper.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1009-5th-Ave-New-York-NY-10028/143156846_zpid/
Handsome Residences of Durham
by Rachel Penniman
We recently got this 1881 map of Durham in the lab and spent time comparing old streets and buildings to what’s currently on those locations.
We were especially interested in the large plot of land on Dillard Street owned by Julian Carr. The map shows many little winding paths on the property.
We wondered if it was a park or a cemetery, but no, it was just a huge personal estate. We found some great information on the Open Durham website including pictures of the beautiful original homes built on that site.
https://www.opendurham.org/buildings/waverly-honor
The original large homes are long gone, replaced by a number of commercial buildings in the 1920s, then a surface parking lot in 2008, and now a large hole in the ground.
A mixed-use development is currently planned for the block. Likely not as handsome as some of the previous structures, but at least a residence once again.