Preservation Beat

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Three volcanoes overlook the city of Arequipa. Arequipa is known as ¨La Ciudad Blanca¨ or The White City, because of Sillar, the white volcanic rock that many of the buildings are constructed of. Another less desirable byproduct of the volcanoes is a fine glassy dust carried by the wind to settle in a fine layer over everything, including books. The dust is so fine it permeates even the smallest of openings. Many of the books are centuries old and have accumulated centuries of dust. One of the ongoing projects here in Arequipa is to clean and remove the books from the San Francisco Monastery. The Books are housed in a condemned building. Pictures of the library are unavailable at the moment but will be added later. You´ll just have to settle for the volcanoes which really are majestic troublemakers. Picchu Picchu is trying to hide beneath the cloud bank, but it´s there.

Misti

Chachani

Picchu Picchu

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Alvaro Meneses, Bibliographer, and Professor of Political Science at the University of San Pablo, paid a visit to our ¨conservation lab¨with his class today. Gary and Joyce talked about different book structures.

Chris Ryan gave a brief talk on early books printed at the Oldest University in Spain which is in Salamanca.

I demonstrated the construction of the ¨z¨ flags we use for cataloging and the reconstruction of a torn page. Gary showed a very large bible he has been working on by flattening pages and mending tears.

Monday , April 20, 2009

For a week and a half, Gary, Joyce, and I have been working in Arequipa, Peru at the Recoleta Monastery. We have been stabilizing and protecting damaged books. Many of these books have been damaged in earthquakes. They are in suprisingly good condition considering how old they are and what they have been through. We have been doing some mending and uniting books with custom boxes built by Linda Lundy and Joyce Miller in Iowa City.  Below are pictures of the Recoleta and the collections we are working with.   �
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Tuesday, April 14, 2009

We are currently working in the library of the Recoleta Convent in Arequipa, Peru. One of the most interesting things we have come across in this collection are the Marcas del Fuego. Marcas del Fuego are metal brands that were used to burn identifying marks into books. They were usually an initial or symbol associated with a library or collection. The Recoleta had different versions of it´s mark over time, these are a few examples.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

This letter was simply dry cleaned, there was no mending needed. It was pretty flat already, but I put it between damp blotters and under weight to get rid of the small amount of warping. The sewing was stable and the manuscript dingy, but legible.

Monday, April 6, 2009

This letter, besides being filthy, had a severe crease across the center. It was a manuscript rather than printed so I couldn’t wash it. I dry cleaned the three pages of the letter and placed it in a humidification chamber to relax the paper. I then put it between slightly misted blotters and under a board with no weights to make sure I didn’t set the crease. The staining remained but I was able to stabilize and flatten the letter. Most of the manuscript is still legible with the exception of one area on the front page that couldn’t be cleaned any further without risk.

Friday, April 3, 2009

This document was stuck to a small leather notebook. I dry cleaned the letter and removed the piece that was attached to the notebook. I then used filmoplast to put the missing piece back and then photocopied the reassembled sheet. This saves the original while providing a working copy for reference.