Papyri Rehousing Project Begins

A while ago we were trying to come up with a new housing strategy for our papyri collection. We finally moved the project from the conceptual stage to the production stage last week!

The collection is currently housed in oversized boxes with only a slip of blotter or paper between the glass packets. The papyri “swim” around in the boxes and rub against each other and knock against the sides of the boxes. The arrangement makes finding a particular papyrus difficult, and can lead to damage as you have to shift the contents to find the one you want.

We needed a solution that would protect each individual papyrus, would be easy to find in the box, would be easy to transport through the stacks to the reading room, and that conveyed a message that these materials needed to be handled with care.

Our strategy is to make an individual folder for each item using two sheets of mat board that are hinged together with Tyvek tape. Inside the folder is a custom-fit Volara foam insert that fits snugly around the glass packet.

 

 

 

Each folder is labeled with a picture-label so that a quick visual match can be done at the desk to ensure the correct papyri is in the folder. In this image you can clearly see the shape of the papyrus in the photo above.

 

 

 

Each folder is cut to the size of the new boxes so that they don’t “swim” around in the box. Seven papyri fit inside a box, which makes these considerably less heavy than the old boxes. If an item was removed to an oversize box, we put a piece of blue-corrugated in its place with a note that it was moved.

 

 

The new boxes are temporarily labeled with a green sticky-note to identify the contents. We anticipate that some items will need to be moved to oversize boxes, and some shifting will have to occur as we go through the collection. We decided to make the labels at the end of the project when the physical arrangement was finalized. I expect that part to be pretty time consuming, but we will cross that bridge later.

We got through about 175 items on our first Boxing Day. The spreadsheet lists about 1800 papyri, but some have writing on both recto and verso and therefor were entered twice in our database. The other benefit to this project is we will have a complete inventory once we are done.

 

1091 Project: North Carolina’s Preservation Community

The 1091 project is a collaborative blogging effort between us and our colleagues at Iowa State University. This month’s topic is our respective state’s preservation and conservation communities, and how we participate in those organizations and groups.

It’s an exciting time to be a conservator or preservation librarian in North Carolina. Many of the higher educational institutions have well established conservation and/or preservation departments including three large universities in the immediate area: North Carolina State University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has two departments, and of course Duke. We all work together in a variety of ways including helping each other solve problems or presenting disaster recovery training for the Triangle Research Libraries Network (UNC, NC State, Duke and North Carolina Central University). As TRLN members, we often present at the annual conference or other TRLN events. Recently we have presented on using social media (Beth Doyle) and the library as place (Meg Brown)

Winston Atkins, our Preservation Officer, is our digital preservation expert for the libraries. He helped initiate, and served as a panelist for, TRLN’s LOCKSS Information Exchange. He also serves on the CLOCKSS advisory board, which helps create open access journals. He also serves on the Center for Research Libraries, Certification Advisory Panel. The Panel ensures that the certification process addresses the interests of the entire CRL community, and includes leaders in collection development, preservation, and information technology.

The North Carolina Preservation Consortium (NCPC) is a state-wide volunteer organization that helps to promote preservation in cultural institutions. Beth currently sits on the board of directors and is the current NCPC Newsletter editor. We routinely attend the annual conferences as they  provide excellent programming and the opportunity to network with colleagues form near and far.

Teaching is a main priority for many of us. Meg Brown team-teaches the UNC Chapel Hill School of Information Science Preservation of Library and Archival Materials class with Jamie Bradway, Head of Preservation at NC State (PDF of syllabus) [Meg and Jamie took the class over from Beth who taught it for many years]. Winston Atkins teaches the preservation class in the Public History Program (Archival Studies) program at NC State University.

Disaster recovery and planning is, of course, a corner stone of preservation librarianship. As mentioned above, we do a lot of training within TRLN but Winston is also on the Heritage Preservation’s Alliance for Response Triangle Cultural Response Emergency Network Steering Committee. Part of that organization is the Triangle Area Cultural Resource Emergency Network (TACREN) whose mission is to provide disaster response assistance and/or support in times of emergencies and for disaster planning. TACREN includes preservation and conservation staff from the region’s libraries, museums, and historic sites in a network of cooperative disaster response and training.

Several of us are members of local bookbinding groups including the Guild of Bookworkers southeast chapter (Meg), and the Triangle Book Arts Group (Mary).

We are also very active on the national level. All of the conservators are members of American Institute for Conservation, and both Erin and Beth have had presentations accepted for this year’s AIC conference in May. Beth has done a lot of programming for AIC in the past as part of the Library Collections Conservation Discussion Group. Beth and Winston are also very active in the American Library Association Preservation Administration Interest Group, serving on committees and as discussion group chairs or presenters.

Parks Library Preservation has more on what they are doing around Iowa, let’s go over and see what they are up to.

Florence: Days of Destruction (A Film by Franco Zeffirelli)

Written by Winston Atkins, Preservation Officer

Monday, 20 February 2012 at 2:00-4:00 p.m.
Perkins Library, Room 217 (Free and open to all)

Please join us for a showing of “Florence: Days of Destruction,” Franco Zeffirelli’s rare documentary of devastation to the city of Florence, Italy, and the art and cultural history in its museums, archives, and churches. This copy of the film, part of the University of Maryland Libraries’ collections, is one of very few in existence.

"Mud Angels" save artwork from floods.

When the Arno River overflowed its banks on November 4, 1966, it overwhelmed Florence, Italy, one of the world’s great cultural centers. Franco Zeffirelli, busy editing “The Taming of the Shrew,” quickly assembled a crew to document the damage suffered by a city filled with historic architecture, art, books and archives. His film, narrated by Richard Burton, reportedly raised $20 million for the relief effort. Those efforts culminated in an international rescue and salvage effort that fundamentally changed approaches to the preservation of cultural property.

Bryan Draper, the University of Maryland Libraries’ Collections Conservator, will host this showing. He will also display a collection of printed materials relating to the Florence Flood and its aftermath.

Co-sponsored by the Duke University Libraries’ Conservation Services and Preservation Departments.

Image from CultureGrrl.

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!

 

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.

Quick Pic: President Few’s Death Mask

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: A Day In The Life Of The Conservation Lab

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

Quick Pic: Frightening Finds

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 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.

 

Duke University Libraries Preservation