Thursday, January 13, 2011 Binding a 10,000 page book is no small task! You can’t get your hands around all 10,000 pages at once so the book needs to be assembled into smaller units and then bound together using a specially constructed press to hold everything in place, nicely squared up, until the book textContinue reading “Big Book Explained”
Category Archives: Book & paper conservation
Frost Honored by Guild of Book Workers
Wednesday, October 13, 2010 Gary Frost, Conservator, University of Iowa Libraries, has been given the Lifetime Achievement Award for 2010 by the Guild of Book Workers. The Guild, founded in 1906, is focused on service to the hand bookbinding community. Frost joins other Awards recipients Bernard Middleton, Hedi Kyle, Don Etherington and Michael Wilcox. HeContinue reading “Frost Honored by Guild of Book Workers”
Czech book project
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 One of the projects that we’ve just begun to address has been waiting two years. The Czech Slovak library has roughly 7500 books that were frozen post flood. They estimate that 20 % of the books are damaged beyond repair and will need to be replaced. Nancy and I went upContinue reading “Czech book project”
OLLI Creating Post-Bound Digital Photo Album Class
Friday, April 16, 2010 This is the fourth class that we have taught for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. It’s a lot of fun introducing students to the joys (and trials) of working in a conservation lab. All the material is pre-cut for the class participants ready for them to assemble. Well, almost ready toContinue reading “OLLI Creating Post-Bound Digital Photo Album Class”
Banner Repaired
Thursday, April 15, 2010 This banner from the African American Museum was signed by Jesse Jackson. The signature and surrounding illustration were sprayed with some sort of fixative which didn’t end up being very sound. The large part of the banner was fine but the areas with the fixative were detached and curling up away fromContinue reading “Banner Repaired”
Suitcase Saga Part 4: Conclusion
Thursday, December 12, 2009 After lots of fussing and fiddling the suitcase is finally done. I removed all the rust from the exterior and cleaned up the metal. The interior was trickier. I removed the paper lining and lined it with a heavy japanese paper and wheat starch paste. Underneath the paper the metal ofContinue reading “Suitcase Saga Part 4: Conclusion”
New Volunteer Elizabeth
Friday, November 20, 2009 Elizabeth Boyne has joined us in the lab as our newest volunteer. We have no shortage of projects. She started with cleaning and flattening newspapers from the Czech Slovak Museum but will most likely clean a collection of busts from the African American Museum and assist with cleaning and flattening manuscriptContinue reading “New Volunteer Elizabeth”
OLLI Students Create Post-Bound Photo Albums
Monday, November 2, 2009 Osher Lifelong Learning Institute students spent two Mondays making a post-bound photo album in the University of Iowa Libraries conservation lab guided by preservation assistant Bill Voss and two Mondays with preservation librarian Nancy E Kraft learning about digital photo layout. Although most of the material was pre-cut, there was stillContinue reading “OLLI Students Create Post-Bound Photo Albums”
Learning How to Use Our New Water System
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 In 2007, the first person we contacted for assistance with designing our new conservation water system was UI water engineer David McClain. He took us on a field trip to view other UI installations and assisted in specifying a new system. Once we had a contract in place, he coordinated allContinue reading “Learning How to Use Our New Water System”
JCHS return!!
Thursday, September 17, 2009 Finally sending some ledgers home!! Leigh Ann Randak came to the Conservation Lab today to pick up 42 finished ledgers and the completed collection of re-boxed court dockets!! This means we are nearly half way through the ledger project and that we’re making progress! Many of these projects are so longContinue reading “JCHS return!!”