Preservation Beat

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

It’s business as usual in spite of the challenges. About a year ago, Gary Frost and Linda Lundy started a boxing project for the Music Library rare books. Gary takes the measurements and Linda makes the boxes. In the past, Gary would go over to the rare book room, take the measurements; Linda would make the boxes; then Gary would take the boxes back and the cycle would start all over. Now they have to get permission to get into the library and take lanterns with them since there is no light. Linda finds the books and inserts them into their boxes while Gary takes measurements for the next set of boxes. They are very close to completing this project.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

All are in agreement that we no longer need the additional ventilation equipment. Early arriving staff will finally be able to enter the building through the west door. It’ll be good to be back to “normal” — at least for the Main Library staff. We’ve had the equipment around so long that someone personalized the air tube outside the administration offices. I have been entering my work area for several weeks by walking under this tube. Taller people have had to duck.

Thursday, September 17, 2008

Waking up in our dorm rooms, we went to work nearly immediately, as the lab was only fifty feet away. Caitlin and I began tackling the “George Washington Carver clay mess.”  Clay had absorbed water in the flood, slid out of its storage jar and resealed itself, becoming moldy. We needed to get the mold out. We siphoned off the water and left the portion of the clay that was still wet to dry. The clay still inside the jar was dry but moldy, and we decided to take out the clay, wash the glass with Orvus liquid, then attempt to scrape off the mold on the surface. Mold, however, had penetrated every cranny and we scraped away most of the day, in between visiting the local dollar store for bamboo sticks and cotton and containers, and learning other techniques from Helen. The objects in the photo are the items that we managed to complete under Helen’s supervision.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

After the pretty drive over to Illinois, Caitlin and I unpacked the car–a load of baskets, the clay from George Washington Carver, some metal objects, a few gourds and some supplies Helen had recommended we bring.  Although it was almost dinner time, Helen thought we should dive into some training, and then reward ourselves with dinner out. 

Helen went over the “levels of cleaning” and demonstrated on one of the baskets.  She had clipped an end from a disposable dropper and attached it to the end of the Nilfisk vacuum hose, which resulted in finer suction. Helen also
introduced us to the PVOH sponge. It was an immediate hit; the sponge took up quite a lot of grime from one of the gourds we brought. After the intro lesson, Helen then showed us the wonder of sauerkraut as a pizza topping. 

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Helen Alten is teaching at the Campbell Center, Mt. Carroll, Illinois, http://www.campbellcenter.org this week and graciously agreed to stop in for a visit to assist with some of the African American Museum of Iowa objects. To our surprise she offered to train Beth Stone and Caitlin Moore on how to clean baskets, gourds, and clay in the evenings at the Campbell Center. We promptly took her up on the offer. These items do have some of the same characteristics of paper. Learning to work with these materials will greatly enhance Beth’s and Caitlin’s skills. Having them clean these objects rather than Helen will also reduce costs to the AAMI.

Helen selected a few items for us to send her way and offered lots of great advice during our afternoon together. Susan Kuecker as the AAMI curator stayed throughout Helen’s visit so we could have instant decisions as to what to spend time on and who should work on what.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Finished with the initial cleaning of all–yes all– the records. We had abused the Oakdale paper facility for the summer, and Tim let us use the space for a party. Nancy picked up sandwiches, Gary and Joyce brought drinks and the table decoration, and Caitlin, Kat and I cleaned up the space. Kristin, Joyce, Bryan, Bill, and Kat–who had all helped with the cleaning in various stages came as well as the nearly the entire Preservation Department from the University’s Main Library. It functioned as an open house, as it was the first time some of the staff had gotten to see the paper facility and how we had been using it to treat flood materials. Some of the staff also toured the storage facility in the research building.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

When we finished the record project at the Oakdale paper facility we moved everything to the main library except a few boxes of LP covers which we put in our remote storage area in Oakdale Hall. We scrubbed and bleached everything we had used to make sure we weren’t leaving behind any of the mold or sludge we had cleaned from the albums and their covers.