Tag Archives: Collaboration

Welcome to Our New Intern Angela Nettles

We are delighted to welcome our sixth HBCU Library Alliance intern, Angela Nettles, to Duke Libraries. Angela is a rising senior at Bennett College where she is studying Africana Women’s Studies. She is also one of eight students studying preservation this summer through the University of Delware/HBCU-LA internship program. As a part of the program, she will spend four weeks with us learning everything from binding pamphlets to conducting condition surveys.

After two years of presenting this program online, it’s refreshing to have our intern onsite again. So far, this first week has been a busy one. In addition to her bi-weekly cohort meetings, Angela has dived right into work here at Perkins Library.

To start, she spent the first half of the week assisting the Exhibition Department to set up the “Mandy Carter, the Scientist of Activism” exhibit.

From left to right: Meg Brown (Head of Exhibition Services), Angela Nettles, and Yoon Kim (Senior Library Exhibition Technician) after working on the Mandy Carter exhibit
Placing case labels and adjusting exhibit lights.

As you can imagine, there was a lot to be done. Regardless, Angela was up to the many tasks at hand. From sanding the walls to setting up exhibit cases, she eagerly took part in every step of the process.

Left: Sanding the walls to prep them for the new Phototex graphics that were going up. Right: Meg Brown showing Angela how they measure light in exhibitions for preservation purposes.

Additionally, the second half of the week was spent introducing Angela to my work in the conservation lab. She learned about how we make treatment decisions for general collections, and has already started doing treatments herself.

Angela finishing her first pocket (left) and binding music scores into pamphlet binders (right).

So far she is a quick study and has already picked up how to do tip-ins, pockets, and pamphlet bindings.

Angela hit the ground running during the first week of her internship, and we have appreciated her enthusiasm to learn and try new things. We can’t wait to see what else she will accomplish during the rest of her time with us! You can read about the full cohort of interns on the HBCU-Library Alliance blog post.  You can find posts from our past interns here. 

Welcome to Our New Intern: Garrette Lewis-Thomas

Our new intern, Garrette Lewis-Thomas, has arrived and we couldn’t be more thrilled. Garrette is our second HBCU Library Alliance conservation intern. Like last year, she will spend eight weeks with us learning everything from minor repairs to making heat set tissue to preparing materials for digitization.

Garrette is a student at Fisk University where she is studying psychology and sociology.  She works at the John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library assisting the Access Services Desk. Her interest in John Hope Franklin fits in well with our collecting areas and we are excited to work with the Rubenstein John Hope Franklin Center to find some projects for her to work on.

Garrette folding boxes.

Day 1

The very first thing we did is take Garrette to a job talk by a candidate who applied for a library position. She got to see first hand what a job interview looks like in an academic library. The interview was at another location on campus, so she also got to learn how to get across campus during the summer on the bus. Day 1 was a little chaotic but it all worked out. She got a tour of a part of campus that we didn’t expect would happen on Day 1. It is a good reminder that not everything goes as planned.

Day 2

Day 2 brought another problem…something smelled terrible in the lab. It’s still unclear what the problem is or where it is coming from. Because we couldn’t be in the lab for any length of time we decamped to the Disaster Supply Room next door. We took the CoLibri machine in along with the newly-arrived shipment of vendor-supplied corrugated boxes. Garrette spent the day covering New & Noteworthy books and folding boxes. In the afternoon we hopped the bus to East Campus and toured through the Music Library and the Lilly Library. Lesson learned: there is always something to do to be productive even when you can’t get to your bench.

Day 3

It still smells in the lab, but it is getting better. Current theory: something dead is in the tunnels below the building and there isn’t anything we can do about it. We are airing out the lab and doing our best to ride this out. Garrette is  working on minor repairs and enclosures. We started the day in the Disaster Supply Room, but have moved back into the lab with all the fans running and doors open. Garrette has already proven to be very flexible, adaptable to change, and eager to learn. We can’t wait to see what the summer holds for her and for us.

Thanks to our supporters

These HBCU Library Alliance internships would not be 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. A big thanks to 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,  Garrette!

What’s In The Lab: Long Civil Rights Digitization Project

Written by Erin Hammeke, Senior Conservator

The Content, Context and Capacity Project (CCC) was a multi-year collaborative digitization project of archival collections that documented the civil rights movement in North Carolina and the triangle. Josh Hager of Duke University Libraries’ Digital Production Center scanned several collections and approximately 66,000 individual items to contribute to this important project.

Some materials required minor repair before digitization, but since they are relatively modern, most of the materials were in stable condition and could be safely handled for scanning. There were some instances when items weren’t fragile, but because of format issues they needed attention before they could be imaged. These items included documents with attachments or bindings with restricted openings.

whitener-1
Before treatment: Heavy staples in side of publication.

The Basil Lee Whitener Papers, 1889-1968 contains several government issued documents that were side stapled to form quick bindings. These bindings didn’t open freely and some had text positioned so far into the gutter that they could not be scanned as they were. In some cases the staples were rusting and damaging the paper as well. With input from curatorial staff, we decided to alter the bindings in order to better capture the content and to ensure their long term preservation.

This process involved Conservation staff removing the heavy duty metal staples — sometimes with a microspatula, and sometimes with every tool we could get our hands on — from wire clippers to vise grips. We then replaced the metal staple with a loop of linen thread that was tied very loosely to allow for unrestricted opening during scanning. After scanning, we cinched and tightened the loop of thread to form a linen “staple.”

whitener-2
Before treatment: Staples restricted the opening and information was hard to read.
whitener-3
After treatment: Metal staples replaced with thread.

Quick Pic: This Week In Conservation (we’re on Instagram!)

This week Duke Libraries joined Instagram! We will be posting along with our colleagues from across departments to show you the inner (and outer) workings of the library.

Our pics will be linked to the Library’s Flickr page and to the DUL Twitter account as well.

If you are an Instagram user, search for Duke University Libraries and follow us. If for some reason you cannot find it, search for #conservation, #rubensteinlibrary, or #perkinslibrary.

Learning On The Job

Recently Alex from the Digital Production Center came by to ask if I could fix a cassette tape. The tape broke while they were digitizing it, and they just needed it to hold together long enough to record Side B. I know a lot about the chemical and physical make-up of magnetic tapes, but I have never had to actually fix one before.

Librarian skills activate! I searched the professional literature and the internet to no avail. There are a lot of DIY articles on the web, but we try to hold ourselves to a higher standard in our lab whenever possible. I finally called a friend who actually does this for a living.

Hannah Frost, Manager of the Stanford University Media Preservation Lab, walked me through how to repair the tape and assured me that I had the skills necessary to do it correctly. In the end the repair took less than ten minutes, and now I know how to do this the next time it happens.

The thing about working in a library is that we collect everything from the usual stuff like paper and skins but we also have poison arrows, glass plate negatives, hair, textiles, paintings, glass eyeballs and magnetic media. I can’t tell you how important it is for a library conservator to create a large network of friends and colleagues who specialize in areas that are not your own. Sooner or later you will find yourself working on something completely different and unknown, and you need to know who to call. Thanks Hannah, I owe you a drink at the next AIC conference.

Care and Handling Training

Pop quiz: What is the best method of removing a book from the shelf?

This week we are presenting our annual week-long Care and Handling/Identifying Common Damage demonstrations. Each year we present our show of horrors to help new library staff and student assistants learn to identify damaged books. We also provide quick tips and helpful hints that can minimize potential damage when items are handled during our day-to-day work.

What we hope comes across is that everyone has a role to play in getting our materials to the shelf safely. We appreciate everyone’s help in keeping our collections around for a very long time.

If you work in the library, stop in to see a demonstration. Our sessions for the rest of the week are as follows (sessions are held in the conservation lab-Perkins 023-unless otherwise indicated):

10/19, 4pm, 6pm

10/20, 11:30am, 3pm (at Lily Library)

10/21, 10am (at Smith Warehouse), 1pm

10/22, 9:30am, 2pm

The answer: push the books on either side of the one you want inwards, and grasp the covers. If you pull on the top of the book to remove it, the spine is likely to tear.

Happy Anniversary Devil’s Tale!

Today, October 8th, marks the one year anniversary of the launch of The Devil’s Tale, our sister blog from the Rare Books, Manuscript and Special Collections Library (and University Archives!).

To celebrate we bring our readers a list of some of our favorite Devil’s Tale posts over the past year.
Welcome to the Devil’s Tale,” their very first post.
A Holiday Recipe From Us To You,” because no celebration is complete without frozen cheese.
Join The Preservation Underground.” Our great friend Amy (keeper of all things Devil’s Tale) named Preservation Underground and has been a great wealth of help and support. Thanks Amy, keep up the great work!
Boxing the Blue Devil,” a creepy gift that keeps on giving. A big thanks to RBMSCL for all the wonderful things they send us for Boxing Day.
As you may know, the traditional one-year anniversary gift is paper. As our one-year gift we give Devil’s Tale this historic image of us working on a broadside (paper!) from the RBMSCL library collection. This happens to also be from our first post.
May you have another interesting year ahead of you and congratulations on your achievements Devil’s Tale!

Where Art and Libraries Meet

I had the good fortune to again be called upon to help the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University install some books for their new exhibit “The Vorticists: Rebel Artists in London and New York, 1914-18”. The show opens on September 30, 2010, and runs through January 2, 2011.

Artwork from several institutions will be on display including some from the Manchester City Galleries. I got to meet and work with Sarah Rainbow, Collection Care Officer, who was there to oversee the installation of their artwork and that of the Victoria and Albert Museum. We conservators love to talk shop, and I really enjoyed talking with Sarah about her job. Of course, working with everyone at the Nasher is always fun, and this is going to be a really wonderful exhibit. I encourage you all to see it when it opens.
I had a few minutes after I was finished to see the current exhibits on display. “The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl” is a must-see (through February 6th, 2011). There is a combination of artwork that uses actual vinyl as part of the artwork, or uses the form of the discs or sleeves as inspiration. Some of the sculpture was fun, and there is mixed media, paintings, and video installations.
What most piqued my interest was the wall of records that you could choose and play yourself. What a great way to bring interactivity to your exhibit. I wonder if we could do something similar with our exhibits. Has anyone experimented with including interactivity with library exhibits in this way, beyond the guest/comment book? Let us know, we would love to hear about it.

Burnt and Bent

Today Alex and I worked together to image some pages from this Syriac Manuscript. According to a hand-written note in the box, it is from the Gospel of Mark, dated to the 10th Century.

Clearly it’s seen better days, but it is remarkable nonetheless. It looks to be to have survived a fire, at least the middle of the text block survived. The front third or so was burned off, leaving stubs that are still attached to the binding, but the spine has curled in on itself. The remaining vellum pages range from really brittle to fairly OK, if a little warped.

Here’s Your Mule

It’s Manuscript Day in the lab, similar to Boxing Day, wherein we all work on flat paper repair. Today we are continuing the Broadside Project, getting these items ready for their close up in the Digital Production Center. North Carolina is this month’s project, and this little gem caught my eye. It’s from the New Bern (NC) Republican Banner, dated April 1884.

Mary has been repairing the tears and losses on this broadside with Japanese tissue and wheat starch paste. After the tissue is applied, a blotter is placed on top with a weight until dry. When the digitization is complete, these will come back to Conservation for rehousing.