Preservation Beat

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Visiting the Vietnam National Archives Center IV

– February 15, 2012Posted in: Book & paper conservation, Community, outreach, education, and events, Intergovernmental Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (UNESCO, IOC), Materials, equipment and procedures, Storage environments

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Today we visited the National Archives Center IV in Dalat, Vietnam. This visit was in sharp contrast to our visit to the Vietnam Institute of Oceanography. Our visit with the VNIO was quite causal and informal. Today’s meeting was very formal, complete with speeches, a gift, and several photo sessions. Linda Pikula and I were greeted by Ms. Pham Thi Hue and her interpreter, Ms. Le Thi Lan.

After giving a brief history of the archives and an explanation of preservation methods, we were given a tour of the archives. All was quite modern with excellent shelving, smoke alarms, and fire suppresant system. One interesting thing of note is that they run the fans for the air-conditioning system but not the cooling. Temperature is kept at 21 degrees Celsius or 70 degrees Fahrenheit and humidity is around 60-70%.

Their documents are repaired by lining the pages with handmade paper and attaching the paper with cacboxyl methyl cellulose glue. In addtion to their documentary collection, they also have a large woodblock collection of the Nguyen dynasty. Just think — the characters needed to be carved in the reverse in order to print on paper. The wood block below illustrates a title page.

Assessing Rare Books

Nancy E. Kraft

– February 14, 2012Posted in: Book & paper conservation, Community, outreach, education, and events, Intergovernmental Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (UNESCO, IOC), Materials, equipment and procedures

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Today we worked with the rare books. Two years ago Yen prepared a list of rare books for review. Both Linda and Yen checked different sources to determine how widely the titles were held and if they have been digitized. From this list we selected only three titles (20 volumes) to inspect, given our time limitations. As a gift to the Vietnam Institute of Oceanography library, the University of Iowa Libraries plans to make boxes for these select titles. I just hope my measurements are accurate.

Each book had to be measured in several places to find the highest, widest deepest part in order to know how large to make each box. I decided to err on too big rather than too small. Plus, we decided with the 14 volume set to make all the boxes the same height and width and just adjust the depth — a shortcut that we probably wouldn’t take if we were working in a lab. We checked the measurements twice and Linda recorded the information.

The books were in mixed condition. All bindings had extensive damage. Most of the volumes had intact legible text except for one extremely brittle book. Fortunately, the brittle book is held by two other libraries and has been digitized.

Visiting Vietnam Institute of Oceanography Library

Nancy E. Kraft

– February 13, 2012Posted in: Book & paper conservation, Community, outreach, education, and events, Intergovernmental Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (UNESCO, IOC), Materials, equipment and procedures, Storage environments

Monday, February 13, 2012

Preservation team

Linda Pikula and I met with Yen and Van to discuss preservation and possible digitization of select portions of their library collection at the Vietnamese Institute of Oceanography Library. The biggest challenge is that the library is quite close to the ocean where ships dock. These ships bring in a lot of dust and pollutants which end up on the books. Airconditioning is too expensive and the heat and humidity is a challenge. Humidity ranges from 50-85% and temperature ranges from 70-108F degrees. To keep the area reasonably cooled they keep the windows open (when it’s not raining!). The windows are across from each other so they do get a good cross breeze.

The good news is that I saw no evidence of mold (fungi). But we do want to reduce risk of mold and insect damage. First simple solution that comes to mind is to install ceiling fans that can be kept running during the day to help keep good air circulation and to cover the windows with a sheer curtain to cut down on pollutants and dust while still allowing good air circulation. I was assured that these two suggestions are within their budget.

Our trip is sponsored by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (UNESCO, IOC) and their OceanTeacher Program.

Illustration of type of sheer curtain material to use for window treatment

Illustration of sheer curtain material that could be used for window treatment

Window in library

Dealing With A Small Pipe Leak

Nancy E. Kraft

– February 12, 2012Posted in: Book & paper conservation, Main library, Materials, equipment and procedures

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

We had a small pipe leak and were lucky that it happened in the day. We covered the books with plastic and were able to shut the water off quickly. Jessica Rogers and Cassandra Elton wiped the shelves, including the lip, starting from the top and working to the bottom. If the cover wasn’t very wet, they wiped the book off and then turned the spine down so the edges could be exposed and air dried. If the pages were wet into the book and not just damp to the touch, the book was taken to our book freeze dryer. As a precaution, we set a fan to blow air into the stacks to wick up any moisture we might have missed.

Record Return!

Kathleen Tandy

– January 31, 2012Posted in: National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library, Object conservation

Preparing to move all 30 boxes on a cart.

Preparing to move all 30 boxes of clean records.

We have been working on many projects for various museums that got hit by the flood of 2008. Remember the entry way back on December 18 of 2009? We may have sounded elated about our accomplishments then, but now we are for sure! We have finally finished the rest of the flood-damaged phonograph records.

Cleaning the record.

applying Disc Doctor cleaning supply to cloth

Applying Disc Doctor cleaning supply to record cleaning device.

All 1580 10-inch LPs and 78 rpms were thoroughly cleaned, sleeved and boxed. We are estimating that this process took at least 400 hours. These records were returned to The National Czech& Slovak Museum within 30 boxes.

Dave and Katie retrieving the records at the museum.

Dave and Katie retrieving the records at the library.

The records and books packed up and on their way to Cedar Rapids.

An Ailing Herbal Comes to Conservation Lab

Elizabeth Stone

– January 18, 2012Posted in: Book & paper conservation, Grants, outside funding, Main library

This book first came to the attention of Martin Rare Book Librarian Donna Hirst when a patron requested to see some of the herbals in the collection. The poor book had been overlooked, though at one time it appears to have seen a lot if use. Or maybe just a lot of neglect. Donna Hirst sent this to the lab for Conservator Emeritus Gary Frost to shore up. While Gary treats this book and gets it to a more handleable condition, I will shadow him and attempt to discover a little bit about this book—where it may have been bound, how typical of an example it is, its condition and what is to be done about it.

The book is a 1626 Frankfurt imprint of Pier Andrea Mattioli’s herbal, originally written in Italian nearly 75 years earlier as a commentary on Diosordies’ De Materia Medica. In 1556 an illustrated edition was published and began to be translated into other languages and widely published. An herbal is a book on plants usually with visual and written descriptions, as well as medicinal, horticultural, and preparatory information. This particular book is large and has color illustrations, but without much notation.

As you can see from the following images, the book has a rather sorry appearance. The spine has gone concave and is partly exposed. The alum taw (the book covering material) is soiled and has torn along the board edges. Part of the rear board is long missing. The spine liners of parchment are curling away and one of the endbands is gone. Many interior pages are ripped, soiled and have large losses, especially in the first and last few signatures.

Although the initial reaction may be one of disgust or sorrow for the book’s condition, it seems to be the original binding and the condition itself can reveal much about the book’s history. Stay tuned!

Tags: herbal, mattioli, wooden board binding

Mini Ornaments Upon a Holiday Tree

Kathleen Tandy

– December 8, 2011Posted in: Book & paper conservation

The holiday tree with all its creative ornaments!

This time of year is full of spirit and creativity. We like to indulge ourselves with fun, small projects like the Conservation Holiday Ornaments. All these ornaments were made within our department by Jody Beenk, Lucy David, Dan Essig, Bill Voss, Susan Hanson, Bu Wilson, Cynthia Mosier and other conservation workers.

tiny awl/pin tool measuring at 1 3/4" x1/4"

Longlink Ornament: 1 1/4" x 1 5/16"

We have mastered miniature books, long stitch bindings, tools, boxes, etc. We hope you enjoy looking at these as much as we had making them. Happy Holidays!

(from left to right): Leather Bound; 1 5/16" x 1 1/8", Shrink Wrap; 1 3/4" x1 5/16", Blue binding; 1 3/8" x1 3/16", Longlink again.

Clamshell boxes open and spread out on table

First clamshell box: 2 7/8" x1 3/16" x1 1/6", open length=4 7/16" - Second clamshell box: 2 1/4" x2" x1 3/8", open length=5 3/8"

wooden board with Ethiopian binding: 1 7/16" x 1", Ethiopian wooden board book, with mouse teeth enclosure and mica window: 1 1/2" x 13/16"

Moving out of 5th floor

Kathleen Tandy

– November 11, 2011Posted in: Flood Recovery, Storage environments

Our storage in the old typewriting room.

Have you ever wondered what was in room 5065 “staff office” with the classification of the word typewriting across the door? Well, today is your lucky day. The room use to be a work space where PhD candidates’ dissertations were typed. Furthermore, this was our storage space for the items being recovered from the flood.

Finally the shelf is empty!

Another empty storage space completed.

These shelves were piled with storage containers carrying anything from books to objects from The African American Museum of Iowa, The National Czech & Slovak Museum, and The Johnson County Historical Society. While it could be overwhelming imagining this space full; we are ecstatic to confirm that nothing pertaining to our department dwells there. You can breathe again and take in some of these pictures showing the unhabituated space.

Linda Lundy’s Incredible Boxes

Kathleen Tandy

– October 1, 2011Posted in: Book & paper conservation, Main library, Materials, equipment and procedures

Linda Lundy, a conservation staff member, has just finished over 300 beautiful, small boxes for book storage use. These boxes were made to hold a variety of small books for the university’s main collection; anywhere from poems to storybooks, even spanish to english translation dictionaries. The boxes were measured and designed specifically for shelving within the Heinz road facility. They measured at about 5″ wide and 6″ in height. Some books were smaller in size than the box size, so fillers were made for these specific circumstances. They were each labeled with the title of the book and sent to marking to make the call numbers. Linda was able to make 22 boxes within a day; the project took around one month to complete.

Linda Lundy showing off her completed boxes.

Odor Reduction for Books in Storage

Kathleen Tandy

– September 7, 2011Posted in: Materials, equipment and procedures, National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library, Storage environments

The National Czech and Slovak Museum and Libraries have a vast collection of books damaged in the flood. Most of their collection is currently in storage in Cedar Rapids awaiting treatment. We recently received a box of books that was pretty smelly. In order to help curb the smell we developed a new way to use an odor reducer that we have been using for some time in the lab.

A Technician seals the tea bag with the tacking iron.

Large bag of Gonzo Odor Eliminator ready to be opened.

The Gonzo Odor Eliminator comes in large bags, too big to fit into boxes filled with books. We decided to make smaller packages of the rocks to be able to place an odor eliminator into each box of books. We ordered large heat-sealable tea bags and set to work. Each package of Odor Eliminator was opened and poured into approximately 12 tea bags. Each bag was then sealed with a tacking iron. Once sealed the bags were placed into the boxes of books to help reduce the “flood smell” on the books.

Gonzo Odor Eliminator in an open tea bag.

Visiting the Vietnam National Archives Center IV

Assessing Rare Books

Visiting Vietnam Institute of Oceanography Library

Dealing With A Small Pipe Leak

Record Return!

An Ailing Herbal Comes to Conservation Lab

Mini Ornaments Upon a Holiday Tree

Moving out of 5th floor

Linda Lundy’s Incredible Boxes

Odor Reduction for Books in Storage

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