Training, What's In The Lab

Poster Assessment

As part of her 8 week summer internship, we’ve been trying to give Phebe some experience in the different kinds of collections care activities that Conservation Services regularly undertakes. This week, we took a break from enclosures and treatments to talk about collection assessment.

The Rubenstein Library holds a collection of papers from Bobbye S. Ortiz, which includes several folders of eye-catching 20th century activism posters from around the world. This collection has seen increased use recently from undergraduate classes and exhibits. As parts of the collection have been called down to the reading room, we have become aware of some condition and housing issues. This seemed like a good opportunity to both introduce condition assessments and prioritize the needs of an increasingly popular set of library materials.

After talking through the kinds of data that we would need to collect in order to develop treatment workflows for the collection, we built an assessment tool using Google Forms. The form feeds data into a shared spreadsheet with each submission. We have found entering information into a form to be a little more user-friendly for an item level assessment than trying to directly fill in a row on a spreadsheet. It also allows us to easily make use of controlled vocabulary, so that the data can be effectively sorted later.

With our assessment instrument in-hand, we gave it a test run through 15 or so of the posters in the collection. As part of this process, we could go through each question in-depth, and show specific examples of object characteristics that we intended to capture with the form. Pretty quickly we realized that we needed to add a field or change the format of fields, but the tool makes that very easy to do.

There are over 100 posters in this collection, but Phebe has been making good progress over the last couple of days. When the assessment is complete, we can coordinate with the curators and Rubenstein staff to plan systematic rehousing or conservation treatment for the items that need some sort of intervention.

Training

Internship Update

We collectively realized yesterday that we are close to hitting the half-way point of our first HBCU Library Alliance Summer Internship. How did that happen so quickly? I guess time flies when you are having fun!

In the last few weeks, we have continued introducing our intern, Phebe, to common materials and repair techniques that we use to maintain library and archives collections. For example, she has been contributing to the digitization prep workflow by dry cleaning manuscripts and performing simple paper mends with Japanese paper and wheat starch paste, as well as heat-activated, pre-coated Japanese papers that we make in-house.

We have spent some time outside of the lab, touring different library departments in order to show how conservation supports wider library initiatives. Touring the Digital Production Center and speaking with the staff has helped to put the digitization prep workflow into better context. Winston Atkins, our Preservation Officer, also came by this week to give an overview of collections care activities, like environmental monitoring, integrated pest management, and disaster planning and response.

Sara Neel, Phebe Pankey, and Conservator Rebecca Smyrl examine an artist book at Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill.

With so many great cultural institutions in the Triangle, we have been able to introduce Phebe and our new staff member Sara to a number of other conservators in the area. In addition to visiting the special collections conservation lab at UNC-Chapel Hill, we organized an informal conservator meet up here in Durham. Our colleagues in the area work with very different collections, such as museum objects, paintings, and musical instruments. We don’t get to see them as much as we would like, so this was a great excuse for everyone to gather together.

Conservation

Welcome Our New Staff Member: Sara Neel

Sara Neel
Sara Neel, Senior Conservation Technician

Please help us welcome our newest staff member, Sara Neel. Sara recently graduated from the University of Kansas with a degree in Art History and a minor in French (which has already come in very handy).  Sara worked in the KU Libraries Conservation Lab from 2015 until graduation this year. She has studied abroad in Italy and France;, and recently gave a paper at the Missouri Western State University & The Albrect-Kemper Museum of Art Second Annual Undergraduate Art History Symposium titled “The Assembly of the Tejaprabha Buddha: Removal, Restoration, and Religious Reduction.”

So far this week she has gotten her bench in order, helped edit some lab manual documents, learned to make corrugated “pizza-box” enclosures, and discovered that the Parking Office is really far away from our building. We are so happy she is here!

Announcements, Collaboration, Conservation, Training

Welcome To Our New Intern: Phebe Pankey

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This week the Conservation Services Department was joined by our first ever HBCU Library Alliance Summer intern, Phebe Pankey! Duke is one of five library conservation labs participating in this program to host an eight-week internship in preservation and conservation this summer.

Phebe is a junior at Winston Salem State University and has been involved in libraries most of her life through volunteering and community activities.  She is excited to learn more about conservation and this internship is a way to continue developing and expanding her library skills.

Phebe has jumped right into the lab workflows, learning to construct some of the quicker enclosures like CoLibri sleeves and 4-flap boxes. She has also been gaining experience with basic paper treatments, like humidification and flattening.

Phebe works with Conservation Specialist Rachel Penniman on humidification of paper.

At the conclusion of the eight weeks, interns are expected to take some of the skills they have learned back to their home institution to implement a library preservation project, building on the success of their summer experiences with an opportunity to perform meaningful work preserving significant HBCU library collections at their institution.

These internships would not have been possible without the help of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, the University of Delaware College of Arts and Science, the Department of Art Conservation at the University of Delaware, and the Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library (DE). Thanks also to Debbie Hess Norris and Melissa Tedone at the University of Delaware. We also wish to thank the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation for supporting this internship.

We will continue sharing more about this internship as it progresses, but for now: Welcome to Duke, Phebe!

Disaster planning, Environment

Another Day, Another Disaster

We had some torrential rain in Durham last night and early this morning staff at Lilly Library on East Campus reported water on the floor in the basement level. Facilities and Conservation Services quickly sprang into action to assess and respond to the needs of the affected collections.

Video tapes and cases set out to dry

Luckily no books were affected. Only some VHS tape cases and paperwork on a desk got wet, so we were able to set them out on tables with box fans and oscillating fans to dry.

Oscillating fans drying damp papersA crew from AfterDisaster also quickly arrived and began removing water from the carpets, opening the bases of walls to allow the sheetrock to dry, and setting up dehumidifiers. One of the dangers to book and paper collections after flooding is elevated relative humidity (RH) for long periods of time. This can promote mold growth, so their efforts will ensure that the RH returns to normal levels quickly.

This is the second basement water event we have had in as many months, but in both cases we followed our disaster plan and our collections came through relatively unscathed. It’s great to work with such a great team!

Quick Pic

Quick Pic: The Best Tour Ever

Today we hosted a delightful group of grad students from a class that Liz Milewicz, Head of Digital Scholarship Services, is working with. They declared Conservation to be “The Best Tour Ever.” We kind of agree. Here we are looking at Kenneth Arrow’s Nobel Prize medal. people looking at Nobel Prize medalWe recently had the preparators from the Nasher Museum here to fit the Nobel medal for a custom display mount. We know this medal will get a lot of use so we are having a special display mount made for it. The Nobel Prize is something almost everyone has heard about but rarely do you get a chance to see one up close. It’s a special object to have in the lab for show-and-tell.

Preservation Week

Preservation Week: Digitization Prep

It’s Preservation Week! Each day we are showing examples of how the conservation department supports the library and its mission. We’ve seen Mary getting items back into circulation, Beth in an important meeting, Rachel showing off a Nobel prize, and Erin undoing some worm’s evil work. In our final post for the week, we will talk about how Conservation supports training and the digitization of collections .

Helen Lee mends manuscript material ahead of digitization.
Undergraduate student Helen Lee applies heat-activated repair material to mend some manuscripts.

Collection materials are constantly being imaged over at the Digital Production Center to provide greater access to scholars around the world. All those materials undergo careful review by our staff before going under the camera, and some items need stabilizing repairs in order to be handled and imaged safely. The sheer quantity of requested material can easily overwhelm our full-time staff, so sometimes our part-time student employees can help with the quicker repairs. Helen Lee (pictured above) has been working in the lab for the past three years and has been trained in several kinds of paper repairs ideal for digitization prep.  Today, she is using strips of pre-coated Japanese paper, which we make in the lab, to mend tears on archival material. She uses a small heated tacking iron through a barrier of silicone-coated paper to apply the repair strips.

Helen is graduating this semester and we are so sad to see her go! But it is rewarding to see students head off on new adventures and hopefully some of the preservation training she received here will come in handy along the way.

Happy Preservation Week!

Preservation Week

Preservation Week: Going Down a Wormhole

It’s Preservation Week! Each day this week we are telling a short story about how the conservation department supports the library and its mission. We’ve seen Mary repairing circulating collection materials, Beth representing in the board rooms, and Rachel working on custom mounts. Today we will take a peek at something a little more… chewed.

book pages with worm holes

Erin Hammeke, Senior Conservator for Special Collections, is currently working on an 18th century Spanish history of North America from the Rubenstein collection, which was badly eaten by insects at some point before it was acquired by the library.

insect damage creating handling challenges for book pages.The insect damage is so extensive in places that the book is very difficult to handle without causing further damage. In order to make this item accessible to researchers, Erin is applying strong, but reversible, mends of Japanese paper to infill each one of the losses. The color of the repair blends nicely with the original paper, so that it does not distract so much from the text.

page after treatment

The conservation treatment of this item will take a considerable amount of time, but it will ensure that a valuable resource is made available to patrons for many years to come. With all the requests for special collections items, either by scholars in the reading room, for our exhibitions, or for digitization, we work closely with our colleagues in Special Collections to prioritize treatment and make treatment decisions.

Preservation Week

Preservation Week: A Nobel Experiment

It’s Preservation Week!  This week, we are looking at the daily life of a conservation department and the work we each do in  support of the library and its mission. On Monday, Mary was repairing a book with very cool end papers. On Tuesday, Beth was in a meeting (surprise!).

Sometimes you need to bring in expertise when faced with a particular challenge. Rachel is working with Brad Johnson and Patrick Krivacka from the Nasher Museum of Art to build a custom mount for Kenneth Arrow’s Nobel Prize medal. Today was the medal’s first fitting. They also discussed the finish for the stand and came to agreement on the height of the frame.

Fitting the medal in the stand
(L to R) Rachel Penniman, Brad Johnson, and Patrick Krivacka discuss the fit of the display stand.

 

Kenneth Arrow was an economist, professor, and Nobel laureate. Arrow’s career is especially distinguished by his contributions to the theory of social choice, including his book Social Choice and Individual Values, published in 1951, and his contributions to general equilibrium theory. For these achievements, Professor Arrow has been awarded the Johns Bates Clark Medal (1957) and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics (1972), which he shared with Professor Sir John Hicks.

We are very excited that we will have a custom-fit stand so that the Nobel medal can be displayed in classes, show and tells, and exhibits. Thanks Patrick and Brad!

Duke University Libraries Preservation