Edible Book Festival

Edible Book Festival Head Up!

Medium Raw (liver)
"Medium Raw," 2011 winner of Least Edible Award

It’s never too early to start planning your edible book festival entry. This year we will be celebrating on Monday, April 2nd, from 2-3:30pm in the Gothic Reading Room. Details can be found on the Edible Book Festival web page.

The event is open to all Duke University and Medical Center staff, students, and the general public. There is no entry fee. The only rule: Make edible art that has something to do with books as shapes or content. Past EBF entries can be seen on  Flickr.

You don’t have to enter to join the fun, the Festival includes:

  • Refreshments that you will want to eat, unlike some of the entries.
  • Voting for your favorite entries in several categories. Help them win a prize!
  • An opportunity to participate in the silent auction. Take your favorite edible book home with you!

 

Conservation

Boxing the Mysterious Emily Johnson Gravestone

By Jennifer Blomberg, Senior Conservation Technician

Close up of gravestone
Detail, Emily Johnson gravestone from the collections of the Duke University Archives.

The gravestone of Emily Johnson (1895) came to the Conservation Lab without any previous housing or protection.  The gravestone presented obvious challenges in creating a supportive and protective enclosure that will adequately safeguard this solid stone burial piece. While this object is far from delicate per se, it is very vulnerable due to its size and weight. Read about the history of the Johnson gravestone on The Devil’s Tale.

Goals For The Housing

  • The enclosure had to be supportive of the weight of the gravestone.
  • Access areas were needed to permit two people to be able to carefully lift the gravestone out.

Creating The Enclosure

I thought this enclosure would be a challenge to design and fabricate, but it turned out to be a considerable problem-solving mission requiring brainstorming sessions with all of my colleagues. The process incorporated some trial and error, and some experimenting to be able to get to the final box arrangement.

Here’s what I did:

  • Constructed a double-walled tray for the stone with room for hand access. I lined this tray with Volara to provide cushion.
  • Made fills for the corners to support the curve of the top of the gravestone.
  • Constructed a drop-spine box and adhered the cushioned-tray to the bottom of the box.
  • Lined the sides and trays with more Volara.
  • Labeled the box with “Very Heavy- Handle with Care” labels.
Final box for gravestone
The final box for the gravestone.

The Final Box

Overall, I am very content with the final box and believe that it achieves the goals we sought out to accomplish. It will provide a supportive and protective enclosure for this gravestone.

Boxing Day, Conservation, What's In The Lab

Quick Pic: President Few’s Death Mask

2 Comments
William Preston Few death mask
Death Mask of William Preston Few from the collections of the Duke Unviersity Archives.

Here lies the death mask of Duke University President William Preston Few (1910-1940).

His head is in the lab having recently been on exhibit. It’s existing enclosure wasn’t providing adequate protection for the delicate plaster, so Jennifer is building an enclosure for it.

It’s creeping us all out.

 

1091 Project, Collaboration

1091 Project: A Day In The Life Of The Conservation Lab

6 Comments

Welcome to our first 1091 Project post, a new effort in collaborative blogging!

1,091 is the number of miles between Ames, Iowa and Durham, North Carolina. Ames is the home of Iowa State University and our colleagues who write Parks Library Preservation. On the third Friday of each month, we will pick a topic and write about that topic from our own perspectives to highlight the similarities and differences between our programs. Our hope is that we will learn from each other and spark conversation between us and between our readers. If there are topics you are interested in hearing about from us, please leave them in the comments box.

The Verne and Tanya Roberts Conservation Lab is located on the lower level of Perkins Library. We work on both general (circulating) and special (non-circulating) collections. Our program has one full time technician to work primarily on general collections, plus 0.5FTE student assistants and two volunteers to help her. Three conservators and one technician work primarily on special collections materials. And there is me, the head of the Conservation Services Department. That makes six full time staff, two volunteers and our student assistants all working diligently to maintain our collections. Last fiscal year we repaired over 2,800 items from the collections and made over 8,500 custom enclosures.

1091 Project: A Day In The Life Of The Conservation Lab

A typical day begins at 8am with the collection of the damaged books from Circulation, with a stop in Shipping & Receiving to pick up books sent over from the branches or from Perkins technical services. These are brought to the lab and each item’s bar code is scanned to change it’s process status to “in preservation.” The books are sorted by the type of repair or enclosure they need and put onto our shelves. This allows staff to  pull several books needing the same repair. By working in batches our repair procedures are more streamlined and efficient, and the work turns around faster.

When the Rubenstein Library opens at 9am, we will collect any damaged items that were used in the special collections reading room. We will also pick up any special collections items sent over from Rubenstein Library’s technical services department for enclosures or pre-shelving repair needs. We will transfer these items to the lab and enter them into our Lab Log, which is a list of all the special collections materials that are in Conservation. The conservators will write a condition report for each item, then they will meet with the curators to discuss treatment options and agree on what will be done. Once they sign off on a treatment, digital photographs will be taken before treatment begins, and again after treatment. These will be filed with the written treatment documents when the items are returned to the library.

If today is Boxing Day, everyone in the lab will work on making custom enclosures for special collections. Boxing Day is great for your statistics since you create several boxes in one day, but it can be challenging to remain productive while the board shear is occupied or someone else has the corner rounder. It’s a good exercise to figure out how to remain productive while waiting for equipment, and it’s amazing how much prep work you can do while you wait.

As department head, my time is spent planning, managing the budget and staff, and gathering information, or as I call it, “keeping the wheels on the Conservation bus.” Every now and then I get to work at the bench, but it’s never as much time as I would like. My day is usually spent meeting with colleagues to find out how we can improve our services, and developing new initiatives and strategies to ensure our services are aligned with the Library’s strategic plan and direction. I may attend a lot of meetings, but I find this “strategery” to be rather fun and challenging. We are on the verge of some new and exciting initiatives that I can’t wait to roll out.

Other things our staff may be doing on any given day include helping our Exhibits Coordinator install an exhibit, working with the Digital Production Center to repair materials before imaging, and working with the Head of Preservation to record insect activity or environmental conditions in the library. And if it is April 1st, we will be holding our annual Edible Book Festival. Many of us also contribute to the profession by publishing research, presenting at conferences, and actively participate on state- and national-level committees. You can find more images from the lab on our Flickr page and you can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

That’s our typical day, let’s see what is happening over in Ames at Parks Library Preservation. [link is now working 1/20/12 1:52pm]

The end of a productive day

Boxing Day, Conservation, Quick Pic

Quick Pic: Frightening Finds

2 Comments

Nothing quite gets you thanking your lucky stars that you live in the 21st Century as working with the History of Medicine Collection in the David M. Rubenstein Library.

We have been helping to retrofit the boxes containing historic medical instruments in preparation of our move to swing space for the next phase of renovation.

We had a good time playing a game I call, “what in the world is this thing  and what body part does it apply to?” Depending on your “ick” tolerance it can be a fun game. Do you want to take a guess at what this is?

Conservation, job announcement

Conservation Technician Position Announced

Conservation Tech, Library Assistant

(1 Year Term Appointment)

Under the general supervision of the Head of Conservation, creates custom enclosures and performs minor treatments for the repair and rehousing of special collections materials. S/he works with members of the Conservation Services Department to prepare materials for moving items off site and to temporary swing space as part of the Perkins renovation project.

For a complete job description and instructions for applying, click here.

 

Boxing Day, Collaboration, What's In The Lab

It Takes A Village To House A Village

The Doris Duke Archives recently sent us this “Tiny Thai Village” for boxing. Read about its history on The Devil’s Tale.

The TTV came in a small box with all of the models inside. Obviously a box half the size of a Twinkie would disappear in the stacks and make access difficult. While these models aren’t fragile per se, they are delicate and the little houses had no real protection.

Our goals for the final housing were three-fold

  • The new enclosure had to be big enough to go to the stacks
  • Each little house needed its own compartment for safety and security
  • You needed to be able to lift out each model with your giant fingers

Experimental Box-making
I thought this would be easy, but it took a lot of trial and error to figure it out. I grabbed a standard Metal-Edge box meant to house cabinet cards and started experimenting. Here’s what I did:

  • Created a tray with a compartment for each house
  • Built up the inside so that the models would be level with the top of the box
  • Inset the original box so it was at the same level as the models
  • Lined the lid with Volara to provide a cushion should they get shaken
  • Labeled the box with big “Fragile-Do Not Tilt” labels

The Final Box
While each model can still move around in its compartment, they don’t knock into each other and you can still get your fingers in to take them out. You can also quickly tell if one is missing since each compartment should be occupied.

Although I would likely do something a bit different if I were asked to house this again, I think this enclosure achieves the goals and will provide more protection than the original box.

Announcements, Conservation, Preservation

Last Minute Gift Ideas

3 Comments

With contributions from Winston Atkins, Preservation Librarian

Never fear, your secret holiday helper is here! We have for you some last minute gift ideas for Hanukkah, Christmas, Winter Solstice, Kwanzaa or New Year’s.

Heck, these make great hostess gifts, thank-you gifts, or birthday gifts, especially if someone’s birthday falls smack dab in the middle of all of these holidays (ahem).

Gifts under $20

Gifts to $50

Gifts to $100

Gifts over $100

The usual disclaimer: Listing does not imply endorsement of any product or vendor.

Announcements

Happy 2nd Birthday To Us!

Today our blog turns two years old! In the spirit of Thanksgiving we wish to thank all of our readers and colleagues for helping us make this blog successful. It’s been a great two years filled with weird and wonderful things.

Our birthday wish? to continue to bring you more news and views from the Lower Level, and to engage our readers in more conversations.

What kinds of posts do you like to read? What don’t you know about our work that we can highlight? What drives you to respond to a blog post? Oatmeal spice cake left over from yesterday’s feast counts as a fiber-filled breakfast item, right?

Image from “Two African Trips With Notes and Suggestions on Big Game Preservation in Africa,” by Edward North Buxton (1902). This item is in the lab so that we can fix the large fold-out map that accompanies the text.

Duke University Libraries Preservation